Operation Angry Gods
by adipose1913
Summary: When a UFO crashes near Camp Half-Blood, Percy, Annabeth, and the rest of the seven are thrown into a war with creatures even the gods are afraid of. T for mild violence and swearing.
1. Ch 1: another day on the job

**Hello, Internet! This is adipose1913 with my first fanfiction. This was a crazy crossover idea I had for a while, and I decided to finally get off my duff and write it. Please read and review, and enjoy!**

 **I do not own XCOM or Percy Jackson.  
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 **EDIT: this has bugged enough people, so I am changing the kill count. It was bugging me to, if I am honest.**

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(Bradford's POV)

 **0420 hours local time, xcom HQ, LOCATION CLASSIFIED**

The Commander was tired. That was obvious.

The blonde-haired man who led XCOM had Dark circles under his eyes from constant alerts at all times of the night. Bradford himself looked no better as he handed the slightly shorter but more slender man a cup of coffee.

"Thanks, Jeremy"

Bradford winced. "How many times do I have to tell you my name is classified for my reason?"

Commander Mark Johnson Grinned and held his arms out wide. "I have to have _some_ fun, don't I?"

Once again, Bradford was struck by the disregard the director showed for conventional military tactics and protocol. He socialized in the Barracks when he was off hours. He was on first-name basis with many of the engineers. And, strangest of all, he made swat tactics with six men work against 2 to 4 alien squads at once.

But then again, the commander himself was pretty unorthodox. Only sixteen, with no military background save for an online masters in military history from Oxford, he had seemed inadequate to Bradford when he first stepped off the Skyranger. But here, again, he surprised by only losing 3 men in the 6 months he had been in charge. He had earned Bradford's – and the rest of xcom's – respect by killing 4 aliens when the Base had almost been overrun. 2 of those had been after he had tackled an engineer to save her life, losing his leg to a Muton in the progress.

"So, Bradford, what is the crisis of the hour?" The commander's steady tenor voice took Bradford out of his thoughts. He shook his head. "We have a Large Scout over the Eastern United States. Looks like it's headed towards New York. Raven-4 is en route to intercept."

"Excellent." the Commander stated, "I can't wait to see what Gramp's and Oppenheimer's new plasma cannon does." Bradford suppressed the urge to chuckle. The Commander had a seemingly endless arsenal of nicknames he used as shorthand in conversation and while in command. The soldiers often took up these mantles as their call-signs. "How long until contact?"

"About thirty seconds." Bradford replied.

The engagement was brief and very one-sided. Doctor Valhen's new weapon had performed above expectation. Then again, The UFO's have been a lot bigger lately, and the aliens had followed suit.

"Prep Squad Bravo to clear the crash site, strip it, and put up a new Taco Bell."

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(Percy's POV)

 **0520 hours, Camp Half Blood, Long Island, New York**

Percy Jackson was bored.

Sure, for once in his life, nothing crazy had happened for a year (unless you count the crazy alien paranoia, which he most certainly didn't.), but that was part of the problem. No big bads, just college in New Rome with Annabeth.

"Something wrong, Seaweed Brain?"

 _Speak of the devil,_ Percy thought. "Just bored. Who knew I would miss something trying to kill me."

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, was sitting in front of Long Island sound, staring at the sunrise. He always loved this time of day, when the soon just started to grace the ocean with its gentle rays.

"Come here," Annabeth said before bringing Percy into a huge hug. "I for one am glad we get to spend more time together."

"Heh, that is true. I miss adventuring with Grover and Tyson, though"

"Aw, you didn't miss me?"

Both of the demigods turned to the newcomer, who was standing cross-armed as he materialized in front of them.

"Jason!" Annabeth shouted in surprise as the son of Jupiter Fist-Bumped Percy. "How are the shrines going?"

"Slowly, but I think I will finally have them all by January. You guys married yet."

Percy turned a deep scarlet. Before he could form any scathing remark, however, the trio was interrupted by a massive roar.

"What in Zeus's name is that?" Percy shouted.

"Whatever it is, it's headed for the Lake," Jason yelled. He pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Come on, then!" Annabeth yelled.

As the trio reached the lake, the campers were stirring, getting out with various weapons in hand, many still in the outfits that the slept in. Chrion had his bow unslung, shouting orders. Just as they reached Chrion, everyone looked up and gawked. An honest-to-gods, disk-shaped UFO was on fire, and crashing right over the camp. It soon passed, and a small plume of smoke went up a ways of.

Annabeth turned and stammered to Chrion. "That… I… that must have been an illusion of the mist, right, Chrion."

The Centaur had a grim look. "I am afraid that was very real, child. We must find out who these intruders are, and, more urgently, why they crashed. Jason and Percy, the crash is three miles away. Leave the Pegasus and walk, please, but do so quickly. Try not to engage, and good luck.

The two boys nodded, and set out into the woods, their hands on their respective weapons.

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 **Two hours later**

The boys were in top condition, but even then, the thick foliage and dim morning light lead to a long trek.

"Why exactly could we not take the horses, again?" Percy complained.

Jason formed a response, but it left him when he saw movement. "get down!" he whispered.

Several feet in front of them, three lumbering creatures stumbled into a creek ahead of them. The boys ducked behind a fallen tree, and looked down from the crest of the hill they were on. All thoughts of these being monsters faking the alien act (hey, it had happened before) were dashed when Percy saw these creatures. Two of them were wearing a green armor and vaguely resembled a collector's toy his mom had been forced to sell by Gabe. Their lumbering hands held strange rifles that were glowing a green color. The third alien had no weapons, was twice the size of the other two, and had a blood-red armor.

"Holy Hades, those are real aliens" Jason voiced under his breath. The aliens must have heard something, as they started moving towards their hiding spot. They looked at each other. Percy was not keen to take on the obviously combat-ready aliens, but there was no way they were going to avoid a fight. The green men were almost on top of them. _Please let me get back to Annabeth,_ Percy silently prayed as he reached for his pen. Before he could do anything, however, a loud roar announced the arrival of an unknown jet with strange markings. _Who is insane enough to take on aliens? Well, besides us._ The jet seemed to anger the aliens, and they made their way down the creek, as the jet landed at the foot of a waterfall the creek ran down 200 yards away.

Percy's jaw dropped as the strangest soldiers he had ever seen poured out of the jet and engaged the green aliens with their own green weapons. A man with what can only be described as Rambo's dream laser gun took cover behind a tree and poured a volley of green light into the red alien. A sniper shot at the red alien as well and then took a second shot at one of the green aliens, who promptly collapsed with a gaping hole in his chest. A dude with the same rifle as the alien took cover and shot at the red alien. Then a bona-fide mech ran up and _punched_ the red alien, sending its corpse flying. A sixth guy ran behind the other green guy and shot him twice with a fancy shotgun. With all the aliens dead, the two boys stared at the soldiers and then at each other. _What just happened?!_

"Tangoes cleared" laser Rambo said. The soldiers then seemed to pause as it listening to someone… then turned their weapons onto the teens.

"Unidentified Civilians," the mech said robotically, "put your hands on your head and stand out of cover. Failure to comply will result in the use of lethal force."

What else were they _supposed_ to do?


	2. Ch 2: Why xcom mugged percy

**Hello Internet! Shoutout to my one review by M tails and the favorite FlawedMortal gave me, both of which spurred me to write a second chapter to hopefully clear up confusion and fix mistakes in the first chapter.**

 **In light of the time this second chapter is taking, I should let you know that I am doing this for the kicks and not for the views. Therefore this story will not have a schedule outside of "hopefully at least once a month." Between school and scouts, I need some source of fun that can be done while waiting for the bus that does not make me want to shoot myself *COUGH* Clash of clans *COUGH*.**

 **In other news, I am horrible at drawing. If anyone has an Idea for a story cover art and can draw, please pm me so I can fill that grey space next to the story name. (Just keep it PG, my little brother frequently uses my laptop without permission) Now on with the show, as this chapter's a doozy!**

 **As always, I do not own XCOM or Percy Jackson.**

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(Commander Mark's POV)

Mark grinned as Terminator – Corporal Henry Brakovich, German assault – leaped over a fallen log, his shotgun pointing at the Muton's green armored back. The lumbering alien slowly turned around, then turned right back forward as a blast from Terminator's alloy cannon sent old green and ugly reeling. A second shot quickly followed, and that was it for the poor Muton.

Mark rubbed his hand as he surveyed the battlefield on the tactical command screen, or "big board," as Shen had once quipped. The big board took all the information from aerial drones, pov cameras, and scanners in the trooper's armor to form a comprehensive digital representation of the battle.

And looking at it, the battle had gone well.

Mark had almost had a heart attack when he saw the Mutons right after the Soldiers had stepped of the jet, but he had acted quickly. One of the reasons he was such a good commander was he could process information quickly, and come up with a solution even quicker. _Have the sniper stay at the bottom of the jet, we are going to need that double-tap Hawkeye has down to a t. Move Soylent the heavy up to start whittling down the Berserker, now have Hawkeye hit the Berserker and one of the Mutons, finish off the Berserker with rusty, and finally have Terminator do his thing._

All this was conceived before the Mutons even found cover.

The commander of XCOM was snapped back to the present when he noticed two civilians hiding behind a bush. At least, they _looked_ like civilians. Mark frowned as he zoomed in on his personal data screen to focus on the unknown civilians. Something was off. They were too well concealed and too calm to be simply cowering civilians. They looked at each other, then back at the scene in front of them. No, these definitely weren't ordinary civilians. They were doing recon on the crash, and wanted to know who these men who barged in and shot up the aliens like this is what they did every Tuesday (which they actually did, by the way) were. _Let's find out who sent you first, eh?_

Mark turned on his microphone and talked directly to his troops. "Strike One, there are two unidentified civilians spying on your position, and from their movements, they are not hostile but do work for someone who wants to know more about the aliens. I want to know who." At this revelation, Bradford looked at the commander's screen, then arched an eyebrow. Bless his WestPoint training, he was great at helping to manage the base, but his lack of combat and people experience meant he wasn't good at reading people or situations.

Come to think of it, _none_ of the command staff or soldiers had any combat or command experience prior to XCOM, except for those granted by the council for special missions (Sure, Mark was a wargaming grand master, but that didn't count). They were all recruited directly from an officer's school like WestPoint or a spec ops school like Brecon Beacons.

 _Why the fresh blood? Why not pick a qualified general and the world's best troops. Did the council members believe that the invasion was phony? Then why activate XCOM in the first place?_ Shaking these thoughts, Mark spoke into the mike again. "Rusty flush them out with your sexy voice," (here central raised his eyebrows), "but safeties on. I do not want any unnecessary casualties. I repeat, safeties on." After an affirmative, every man's weapon click-whirred with the sound of the safeties turning on.

Among police officers and swat teams, the most common way to get an armed, potentially hostile person to comply before they draw their weapon is to either gently talk them down if the officer thinks it might work. If this will not work, which is more often the case, the cops will shout orders (always the same orders from each cop, never contradictory) to drop the weapon, put hands on the head, et cetera. The key here is to have the cops shout the orders in quick succession but desynchronized, as to keep the suspect disoriented. This will either force the man to comply or let the cops get close enough to disarm and cuff the suspect. Vitally, the cops must never threaten the civilian, both because of ethical and legal reasons, as well as suspects reactions will vary to direct threats.

But XCOM soldiers are not police officers. And so, with safeties switched on, the six XCOM operatives pointed their weapons at the not-civilians. "Unidentified Civilians," Rusty said robotically, "put your hands on your head and stand out of cover. Failure to comply will result in the use of lethal force."

The bluff worked beautifully well. To someone who was not familiar with plasma weapons, it looked and sounded like these soldiers had just powered up their weapons, aimed it at them, and were genuinely going to shoot the not-civilians. These unknown spies were not idiots; they had seen what the plasma guns could do. At the same time, they were obviously curious about what was going on, and the people who had answers were currently asking the not-civs to surrender. The inevitable conclusion was the not-civilians stood up, put their hands on their head, and walked a quarter of the way down the hill. Mark typed a couple of buttons on his screen to start a facial recognition sweep, then turned to give his own analysis.

At first glance, it looked like the Commander had been wrong, but scrutinizing the teenagers revealed many red flags. The boy on the right was approximately fifteen years old, six foot five with a military crew cut ( _red flag number one_ ), blonde hair and sky-blue eyes that are hidden behind golden spectacles. He was athletically built ( _red flag number two_ ) with a small scar under his lip ( _looks like a staple remover, probably a childhood incident, so no red flag_ ) and a strange tattoo on his arm, barely hidden by his orange T-shirt ( _red flags number three and four_ ). The other man looked familiar from somewhere ( _red flag number five_ ), and looked like a skateboarder. He was wearing the same orange T-shirt ( _a uniform? Back to red flag number four_ ) and was two inches shorter than blondie (he couldn't think of them as boys, he was around their age himself), but definitely older, at least eighteen ( **A/N he is in fact nineteen, and the "year since crazy stuff" last chapter was referring to the crossover novellas with the Kane siblings. This is two years after BoO)** by the look of his ruggedly handsome completion and build. Speaking of build, the shorter man was also athletically built, but in slightly different places, like he was on a different team – or had a different team specialty ( _red flag number five_ ). At six foot four, he had black, ruffled hair with sea green eyes and a light smirk, like he was used to trouble ( _was he enjoying this? Red flag number six_ ). Looking down his arm, he also had a similar tattoo to Blondie ( _regiment tattoos, maybe? Red flag number seven_ ) and was nervously tapping his fingers, probably due to ADD more than nerves.

There were two more huge red flags, but he was going to see if Bradford would notice them.

"Hey Bruce," Mark said as Central winced at the ongoing name game, "what do you think of double o one and two?"

The Central officer sighed, "Well," Bradford watched as the very boys they were talking to lowered their arms at a request from Rusty. "They aren't new to this. That is certain."

Mark silently agreed as the teens on screen moved their arms down. Their eyes showed men that were assessing their odds if things went south fast, their hands paused over different pockets for mere fractions of seconds, betraying that they were indeed armed. Most importantly, they had the stance of men who were ready to take on any odds no matter how long.

The troops on the ground slowly approached the two not-civilians, walking through the knee-deep creek. When the squad reached the bottom of the hill, the black-haired Skateboard (they didn't know names, so nicknames were needed for now) stated calmly, "I think we are close enough. Let's talk from here."

Mark and Central arched their eyebrows at the unsaid threat. _If you disagree, we will do something we all regret._

"Comply for now, dudes," was Mark's gentle response. The soldiers stopped at a ready stance, but did not drop their guard. _Good job, dudes,_ Mark thought silently, _following their request, yet at the same time letting the kids know Daddy is still paying attention._ Before Mark could give a follow-up order, however, Skateboard blurted out, "Why is the dude in the mech limbless?"

That caught everyone off guard, if only for a moment. "That is not for you to know," Soylent said, trying to keep on track. "We don't know who you are. Let's start with your names."

"Nice try, Laser Rambo, but I am not going to give my name to a random soldier." At this, a few men in central command and even two of Strike one giggled at the nickname the Smirking team had given the poor heavy. Mark smirked. _Even if this conversation isn't going anywhere, at least we have new material for the Christmas party blooper reel._

The Irked heavy eventually replied. "That's fine with me, Central is probably getting your names right now. What is more pressing is why a couple of teens are in the woods on long, island, spying on a clandestine military operation."

The two teens turned to converse among themselves, the garbled conversation hard to make out. Suddenly, Skateboard shouted loudly. "Den tha échoun ti̱n kyvérni̱sí̱ mas kyni̱gáne páli!" **(A/N I am aware that this is Modern Greek, but I do not know anyone who speaks Ancient Greek, I do have one that speaks normal Greek)**

Mark felt his jaw drop. _Holy sh*t! That was Ancient Greek! Wait a second, did he just demand to not be part of another manhunt?_ It was then that Mark knew who at least one of the kids were.

"Soylent, turn on your helmet PA." After Soylent complies, Mark continues. "Perseus Jackson," (this whole debacle was almost worth the " _oh shit"_ look they had on their faces) "this is the commander of the troops you are currently having a lovely conversation with. Please empty all of your pockets and take off that James Bond just-an-ordinary watch. Throw all of these items into the creek. You will get them back as soon as we are done." As the two teens emptied their pockets as if this was a normal mugging (that is to say with looks of great annoyance and loathing), Bradford handed Mark an abnormally thick Interpol file with the organization's logo – a globe with a sword behind it and two sides of a balance scale flanking the globe – as well as the name Perseus Jackson.

Mark turned off the mike and took the file. "You don't get that many teenagers with Interpol files this thick," Mark muttered as he quickly assessed the file, his eyebrow trying to escape as it went higher with each page flipped. He would read it in further detail later.

"You don't get that many teens with Interpol _Files_ , sir," Bradford added. The two men turned back to the screen, where the teens had pulled out an assortment of strange coins, a couple of pictures, a prism, and a pen, as well as the watch. _No cell phones?_ Mark wondered. _And who besides boy scouts and businessmen carries pens outside of school?_ Hawkeye was now trading sarcastic remarks with the teens, living up to his namesake.

"Just put an apple on your head and let's see how you think of my 'strike from afar wimpiness'"

Mark switched his mike on. "That's enough, Hawkeye. I want to talk to them alive, without having to fill out unnecessary paperwork. They've done nothing wrong yet."

"Since we have been good little boys," Percy drawled sarcastically ( _Damn,_ thought Mark, _I left the PA on_ ) "Could we at least know what shady government organization has the honor of mugging us?"

Mark began to respond, but he suddenly paled as the situation went straight to hell.

A giant, lumbering mechtoid crested over the hill the strange teenagers were standing on, followed immediately by two sectoids, which then scrambled for cover. The mechtoid readied his dual plasma cannons, pointing them straight at the teenagers.

Mark slammed the button that turned off the PA and started shouting commands. "All units, weapons free! I repeat, weapons free! Focus fire on the mechtoid. Hopefully we can destroy it before it can what in the acid-filled hell of Mordor?" For a second, the entire control center gaped at the events unfolding on screen. Suddenly, the room exploded in orders and reports.

"This is Bradford, get Doctor Vahlen up her immediately. I want to know if we have been drugged, because I have no other explanation for how I just saw a teenager just sliced a sectoid in half with a spatula."


	3. Ch 3: the problem with Tuesdays

**Hello, Internet. So here is chapter 3 of Operation: Angry Gods! *cue confetti* I am glad people are actually reading my story. I really am just writing for fun, so I will let you know if I am going on vacation so I don't get headhunters on my case for not posting.**

 **I just realized the pure and utter folly in that sentence.**

 **Anyways, I am still looking for cover art, so pm me if you have an idea, whether it is complete art, a WIP, or a vague idea, I will take you up on it (again, keep it PG).**

 **Be aware there is a continuity issue in this chapter. The XCOM squad has a support who has been only mentioned in passing, and not directly addressed until this chapter. I had to make her a bigger character because she has an important role in the story later on. That one is my bad. I may rewrite the first two chapters to fix this error eventually, but I feel that leaving up my original work and laughing about the errors with you guys as I am finishing this story would be more beneficial. I mean, go watch Markiplier's very first video, there is definitely a better polish to more recent videos of his. All entertainment requires practice.**

 **Lastly, there is a STORY-RELATED announcements I have to make. While I was bored in homeroom during school, I made a timeline of all events in the first contact war, which I now know will end around the same time as the story's events end. This helped give me a better understanding of where the story is headed, who will live, and who the volunteer will be. The thing is, I got a little** _ **too**_ **bored in class, and so my timeline now goes past the first contact war, including a massive interdimensional expedition, a second ethereal war, and the largest bug hunt since starship troopers the book; far more than the scope of this story calls for. If you want to see some of this timeline that won't make the cut this time around in one-shots (I will be selective in what I use to avoid spoilers for both this story and potential sequels), please let me know what you want to see in your reviews.**

 **As always, I don't own Percy Jackson or XCOM.**

 **Please R &R, and enjoy the new chapter!**

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(Jason's POV)

Jason was loving his new coin right now.

Sure, it was nowhere near the craftsmanship of Ivlivs, his first coin-sword, with a slight imbalance in spear form and a chipped handle, but it still served him well. An added bonus was that his new coin **(A/N any name ideas are welcome {Must be Latin})** could return to his pocket much like Percy's ballpoint pen, Riptide.

Jason was so glad he had decided to bring it when he saw the aliens crest the hill. Two of them looked like your generic grey-fleshed, round-headed alien. They could easily be taken by him and Percy with a quick sword slice – if it could connect. If not, Jason had a razor blade in his shoe for when (Murphy's Law applies doubly so for demigods, "if" is always a luxury) he faced an opponent that was mortal, and would follow through his slice with a tackle. The grey in the mech (who had obviously seen _district nine_ one too many times) was going to be a problem. Hopefully, the squad of doom would take it out so they didn't have to deal with it.

Battle reflexes took over as Jason reached for his coin. Time slowed down, the coin turning into a sword mid-flip. Jason ran for the grey on the left, dodging incoming fire from the mech as he went. The squad of doom's weapons whirred again as Jason turned to face the grey. The alien turned and brought out its pistol to fire. Reflexively, Jason swung his Gold sword right through the grey's torso, sending blood the color of dishwater over the former invader's cover. _At least the sword worked,_ Jason thought, _now why the heck have the soldiers not opened fire yet?_ As Jason was thinking this the mech turned and opened fire on him. It was an easy dodge, just leaning a few inches to the left, and destroyed the tree next to him. Squad of Doom finally got off their butts and took some shots. The woman with a green rifle opened fire on the mech, barely winging it. Hawkeye the sniper opened fire, his two quick bursts going wide. Laser Rambo suppressed the alien mech's movement, while the soldier's own mech missed his volley. Finally, the shotgun dude opened fire on the mech, missing.

 _So much for the calvary,_ Jason thought.

That was when Percy did something stupid.

He and the district nine mech ran towards each other, Percy's sword clanged loudly against the mech as they passed, not even biting into it. The mech turned around and shot at Percy, the latter diving for cover. Percy's cover went up in green flame when the mech deliberately tracked pery's movements with his volley. This left the young demigod staring wide-eyed at the alien baring down on him.

Jason was furious. He was _not_ going to see another friend be killed by a merciless monster, mortals be damned. It was now his turn to do something stupid.

Ozone gathering in the air, Jason raised his sword and summoned lightning. The electricity arced down onto the alien mech, utterly vaporizing it. When the smoke cleared, Percy nodded his head, looking a little faint. The teens turned towards the soldiers, who were standing in stunned silence.

Hawkeye was the first to speak. "How in hell's name did you slice through the alien with a baseball bat?"

Before Jason could respond, Movement to his side caught his attention.

"Percy!"

The Teen in question had collapsed a large wound in his chest.

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(Support POV)

Amelia had finally decided that these teens were crazy.

Corporal Amelia "Bones" Azarova, Bravo squad's support class trooper, had just seen two teenagers take down two sectoids and a mechtoid with primitive weapons, the latter being destroyed when one of the teens _summoned lightning_.

Now one of the teens was injured.

Commander Johnson was yelling orders before the teen stopped falling.

"Bones! Help skater-boy Conan! Hawkeye, take up overwatch at the bottom of the hill in cover. The rest of you, advance and destroy!"

"Yes Sir!" was the resounding answer from the squad. As Amelia ran to the black-haired boy – Percy was his name, she believed – she saw the blonde haired boy run to Percy's side. He searched his pockets, cursed, and tensed when Amelia knelt next to him.

"It's okay," she said calmly to the blond-haired boy, "I'm a trained medic. Let me see his injuries." Reluctantly, the uninjured teen backed away, leaving Percy visible to the Support trooper.

Being the only one without a helmet, Amelia had an unobstructed view of the injury. The plasma round that had connected had left a large, round wound in the side. No organs had been severely hurt, and the wound was partially cauterized due to the nature of plasma rounds. However, there still was massive trauma and blood loss. She had seen a man die of an indirect shot from a plasma _pistol_ while wearing a Kevlar vest. The veteran shuddered, remembering the 40-plus hours that was the base defense.

"My name is Amelia, I am here to help," Amelia said, not really seeing how she could help. That was a very major injury he had, it might be just too much for the Nanostures.

To her shock, the teen on the ground met her eyes grinned. _How is he still conscious?_

"I've been part of this show enough times to recognize that look," Percy said weakly, "how close to 100 percent is my chance of dying this time?"

Amelia was startled at this. "You took an indirect blow from a plasma cannon without any visible armor. You shouldn't even have enough blood left in your body to take a pulse from."

"150% chance of death. The usual then."

Amelia was now miffed. "I need to treat your wound," she began tersely, "But I'm not sure if I will be able to stop the bleeding."

Percy then met her eyes with a determined look in her eyes. "Get me to the creek."

Amelia was going to refuse him. Percy was most certainly crazy. He was in no state to be moved at all.

Suddenly, the blond teen put a hand on Amelia's shoulder. That teen had her wary, as he had that look and swagger of a veteran leader. She had seen a similar look in the mirror every night, and when she saw Central and Command. "Do you have a water bottle?"

The question took her off guard, but she quickly nodded and handed Blond Guy a water bottle she kept in a lower pocket. He instantly took off the cap and poured the entire thermos right in the middle of the younger teens wound. This sent alarm bells off everywhere in the support's head. But instead of screaming in agony like Percy should have, the deep-tanned teen sighed and gained some color back. What made her gasp was when the wound stopped bleeding altogether and lessened a shade of red.

The non-injured teen looked the medic directly in the eye. "Percy. Creek. Now."

This time, Amelia didn't object. What she had seen was impossible. No, what she was seeing _now_ was impossible.

As the Soldier and the Blonde Guy carried Percy to the creek, the water in the creek seemed to gravitate towards the green-eyed mystery. When they set him down in the creek, Percy closed his eyes as his wound slowly closed, then started to disappear before her very eyes. Amelia exhaled, seeing the boy would recover. He remained where he was, laying on his back in the creek, as if he was there on a mere picnic. That made three impossible things in the last – what had it been, five, maybe seven minutes since they had first pointed their guns at the teens? However long, the rest of the squad had moved on to another pod of aliens, and Hawkeye was at the top of the hill the Mechtoid had appeared on, sniping enemies from afar. She had lost track during the crazy events that followed their first meeting.

Getting a closer look at the teen, Percy reminded Amelia of her nephew. That young man was an avid skateboarder, although he constantly got into trouble with the police of Volgograd, never with illegal intentions, just taunting and rubbing a patrolman the wrong way. This boy also looked like he could cause trouble just by walking into a room with armed men.

Unlike her nephew, however, Percy had very cold, determined eyes. They were old eyes, eyes no one under the age of twenty should have.

Noticing her staring, the injured teen grinned yet again. "Just so you know," the teen drawled, his voice much stronger now than earlier, "I am most definitely taken. My girlfriend would kill both of us if you hit on me."

"You just took and recovered from a near-fatal injury in a few minutes, and then shrugged it off as if you took giant wounds in your chest while fighting aliens every Tuesday," the exasperated soldier said.

Percy frowned as Amelia heard the radio receiver in her ear click on. "The world does seem to need saving every Tuesday, doesn't it?" After Percy said this, a loud guffawing came from the earpiece, the commander nearly choking on his laughter.

Amelia could barely hear Bradford say "Uhh commander, are you okay?"

"Sorry, Alex," the commander chuckled to Bradford, still trying to get a hold of himself. "I just had a very similar thought earlier today." Finally achieving a semblance of seriousness, the commander addressed Amelia directly. "Could you get out of earshot of the warriors two, Bones? We need to talk."

Quickly giving the pair of teenagers a glance – Blond Guy was watching what she was doing, and Percy appeared to be taking a nap, but his chest rose and fell as if he was still awake – she said an affirmative and walked out of earshot downwind, but still within sight so she could keep an eye on them. She then turned to the matter at hand. "What do you need, sir?"

"I want your thoughts on the teens from Sparta, Corporal."

One of the ways Amelia had earned the nickname "Bones" was that the commander would often seek her counsel on matters of tactics and medical emergencies (usually outside of missions, though) because she was one of the few soldiers to come to XCOM a veteran; she had served two tours as a medic in the VDV. More often, though, he would use her as "the Watson to his Holmes," as Shen had once aptly put it. He would bounce his theories at her, and see what she picked up on.

Amelia quickly responded. "I see one of two possibilities," She began, "one is that me and the rest of the squad have been drugged, which I find unlikely as we have seen no concrete symptoms."

"I find it unlikely the entire squad and all of the on duty staff could be experiencing a mass drug-induced hallucination as well," the commander replied, "there are just too many things that need to happen and line up just right for twenty men and woman of different stature and mass to fall victim to a hallucination at the same time. Continue."

"The second option is even more outrageous." Bones paused. _Would the commander think I am insane?_ "I think they may not be human. At least, not entirely."

Bones could practically _hear_ Commander Johnson's eyebrow rise on his head. "That," Johnson said grimly, "is what I was thinking. Tell me, what did you see the teens slice through the sectoids with?"

Here Amelia again hesitated. She had heard at least two versions different for hers. Hawkeye had seen a baseball bat, and she thought she had heard Bradford say something about a spatula on the radio in the chaos of a few minutes ago. But, again, she told the truth. "I saw the teens using swords, sir."

"Yes, I saw swords as well. Vahlen is reviewing the footage now, and sees a sword as well. Get back to the teens, and get ready for extraction. The rest of your squad is breaching the UFO."

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(Vahlen's POV)

Surprising as always, the commander's unconventional tactics took the UFO quickly.

Bradford amusingly had originally dismissed the commander's methods as "amateur swat tactics," when, in reality, the tactics used resembled police entry tactics in passing.

The door entry pattern – first man on left opens door, first man on right throws grenade while second man on right enters to left side of room, second man on left enters to right side of room, first man on left enters to left, first man on right enters to right – were pure swat. Any real swat team, however would never use explosives so liberally for dramatic entry or taking out soldiers.

Real swat teams also didn't have mecs that could punch through alien metal with ease.

That is exactly how they had entered, punching a massive hole in the side of the ship's bridge with a mech, killing a sectoid commander in the process. This had left the other two sectoid commanders open to fire from the sniper and the heavy. The two assault, who were in position to finish of any aliens still standing in the bridge, were not needed this time.

The techs were now taking any artifacts from the site that they could, which had earned the nickname "setting up a taco bell" from a conversation about what happened to the framework of the UFO that was left after a crash had been stripped. The squad of soldiers was leading the two teenagers, Percy Jackson and the blonde one who had introduced himself as "just Jason," back to the skyranger while trying to get some new information out of them while being supervised by Central. Doctor Adelvina Vahlen and Commander Mark Johnson were standing in a vacant alcove, discussing the intriguing events that had unfolded this early on a Tuesday.

"So we can most certainly rule out deliberate drugging, doctor?"

Vahlen nodded her head. "There was no trace in the water sources and pipes of the base or the blood samples we took a few minutes ago from the men in command and control. Besides," here the doctor hesitated, "this sounds nothing at all like drugs."

"Thanks, doctor," Mark grinned, "I needed a professional confirmation, I have another theory of what that was." Here the Commander paused for dramatic effect. "A poorly-maintained illusion."

Vahlen thought for a moment. "That would explain the reason why we got such a varied report from everyone on what exactly the unknown teenagers used as a weapon. However, what were they using then."

Mark grinned yet again. "I have a theory," he proclaimed quietly to the scientist, "and it hinges on the hypothesis that Conan and Heracles were indeed using swords, and you, I, and Bones had seen what was truly happening."

"Then how come we were the ones that saw the truth?"

"Think, Vahlen, what do the three of us have in common?"

"… Multiple college majors?"

Mark chuckled at this. "That's just you and me. No, what we have in common is the three of us may be skeptical at first, but we will always accept what the world tells us in the end as fact, no matter how insane it seems."

Just then, chaos broke out in the main control room, and the doctor and the commander dashed back to the big screen. By the time they got there, however, a new perplexing scene awaited them.

Percy and a blond girl no one had seen before lay on screen, knocked out by arc throwers. A dark-skinned girl Mark was sure had been either on a tabloid someone had left in the rec room or in the audience for this year's Oscars with someone important stood next to Jason, hands on their head. The Assault Terminator was staring at his chest as if looking for a gunshot that should be there, but wasn't

"What exactly happened here?" Vahlen asked a miffed Bradford.

"Remember what Percy had said about a crazy girlfriend? Well, he wasn't kidding. When the girl on the ground tried to stab Corporal Brakovitch, the knife went clean through his chest, leaving no wound."


	4. Ch 4: Mark's calender gets rearranged

**Hello internet, and welcome to chapter four of Operation: Angry Gods! This chapter actually includes the very first scene I wrote out of this entire fanfic: The interrogation room scene! This whole fic started out as a quick write where everyone in our class drew two groups of people and a situation. The two groups I drew were "Greek heroes" and "Secret international organization," with the situation being "Group A is interrogating group B." I ended up having the seven of the prophecy as my Greek heroes and XCOM interrogating them. The end result was fascinating, but I wanted to find out more about this commander character I created, who was basically an assimilation of James T. Kirk and Sherlock Holmes, and his (PLATONIC) relationship with Percy and the gang. And that is how you got here!**

 **Shoutout to the three favorites I have! They are:**

 **Zer Author**

 **danialzkz**

 **And two more shoutouts to FlawedMortal and wasa999, the followers of this story (who are not on the favorites list as well). Thanks to all who favorite, follow, and otherwise support my writing!**

 **One last announcement, I will be releasing a one-shot by the end of the month that will show how Mark was recruited as commander. While it is not important to the story I am telling now, I have quite a bit of background info just gathering dust, so I will start using it. There is also a poll under my profile that will give me an Idea what you want to see from future One-shots. Please respond to that. Now on with the show!**

 **I do not own Percy Jackson or XCOM. Enjoy the chapter!**

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(Annabeth's POV)

"You really shouldn't have stabbed the shotgun dude, wise girl."

Annabeth glared at Percy. About an hour earlier, she had woken up in what looked like a lab of some sort that had hastily been converted into a holding cell. It might be a lab made to study radioactive isotopes or alien weapons, if what Percy had said about the soldiers was correct. The room was the size of a large conference room, with a couple of cots placed inside the corner of the room. The door was vacuum-sealed from the outside, with a one-way mirror that might have doubled as a blast shield. All scientific equipment had been removed, with a table with five chairs remaining on in the center. After a quick conversation, and a follow-up discussion in Greek, she learned what had happened after she was knocked out.

According to Jason they had been lead onto the hover-plane the soldiers had arrived on, with Percy and Annabeth carried on, and all of them had been handcuffed and had a bag placed over their heads before they had landed. No one knew where they were, as Percy woke up shortly after Annabeth. All they knew was that the flight had only been a couple of hours, and they had been in the cell for two hours. They were not near any ocean, as far as Percy could tell, and the base appeared to be underground.

With that wealth of knowledge, the heroes conferred what to do in ancient Greek. Charmspeak wouldn't work according to Piper, as the soldiers here apparently had precautions against some type of mind control in place that happened to be similar enough to charmspeak to nullify that avenue. A straight-up fight was also out, as these soldiers were part of a mortal agency, and were very human.

 _A mortal agency_. This worried Annabeth greatly. If these mortals found out who they were, they had no idea how they would react. These soldiers had been fighting aliens since at least late March, maybe even earlier, if these were the soldiers that had been seen and taped during the supposed alien abductions.

That thought was still hard to comprehend. Even when the terror attacks had happened, many people, including Annabeth, had still tried to prove the aliens were a front for a human terror agency.

Now, it was impossible to deny the truth. Seaweed Brain said that they were real aliens, and he was the one person she trusted everything that person said. He was her boyfriend, and wouldn't tell her "No, those were actually aliens on the news" and not be sincere. Also, what little she had seen of the UFO and the soldiers in this organization told her that there were aliens and, more importantly, people who fought them.

Annabeth was jolted out of her thoughts by the seal on the door hissing. A voice came over the intercom.

"Please stay clear of the door and take a seat. We will be asking you a few questions shortly."

The four heroes slowly took a seat, waiting nervously as the door revealed their interrogator to be… a lanky teenager.

Annabeth folded her arms across her chest and stood up along with Percy, Jason, and Piper as the teen moved away from the door. Studying him, he was unimpressive – on the surface.

At five-foot six, the new man was nowhere near being the tallest person in the room, yet the way he carried himself made him seem as such. An air of confidence and aloof intellect danced across the hazel eyes that his blond hair was pushed well clear of. While his smile had some mirth to it, his face looked like Annabeth's did when she was analyzing a person or situation. His eyes darted across the teens, taking in every detail: how they were paired off boyfriend-girlfriend, how they all would meet his stare, and how Percy and Jason were reaching for their pockets. His stance was that of a soldier, a professional one at that, and the button-up uniform jacket he wore may as well have been a dress outfit for the way the stranger wore it.

The way he walked, the way he commanded respect by just standing there, the way his eyes looked far older than the body they were in, Annabeth could be forgiven for mistaking this kid for a demigod under any other circumstance. However, given why they were here, she found that doubtful.

"A pleasure to finally meet the teens that have been giving the soldiers so much trouble," the teen in the green jacket greeted, reaching his hand across to shake. No one moved to intercept as the door was closed behind him.

"Isn't there someone who can make decisions we can speak with? I am tired of talking to people who just relay information," Percy said bluntly.

"Sorry, I should introduce myself first. Been a while since I have met someone new outside of a briefing or orientation. I am Commander Mark Johnson, the leader of the XCOM project, an international organization that is humanity's last line of defense."

The stunned silence was broken by the sound of someone headdesking on the other side of the glass.

The apparent commander rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on Bradford," he yelled at the glass, "we know who _they_ are (more or less), and they want to know who we are anyways, they probably were going to find out regardless of who we sent in."

"I just hope you thought this through, sir."

Mark rolled his eyes again, then moved to shake the demigod's hands again. This time, they accepted. "Let's have a seat, shall we?"

As they sat down, Annabeth noticed the insignia on Mark's jacket and raised her eyebrows. "'Vigilo Confido'?"

Mark grinned. "Loosely translates as 'I trust in vigilance.' If you ignore the funky grammar, that is." Mark then proceeded to throw five Interpol folders down onto the table, one after the other. The first four were unusually thick, but the last one was thicker than the other four combined. It was Percy's turn to raise his eyebrows. "Who here made someone's government really angry?" he asked.

"All of us, apparently," Mark said as he gestured to the folders, "as we are in one of the only rooms outside of a prison where every single occupant has an Interpol file. Let's make a deal. I will read your folders in front of all of you, and then you," here Mark gestured to the largest folder, "will read my folder. Afterwards, let's fill in the gaps for each other. What do you say?"

Annabeth was beyond intrigued. How was someone with that thick of an Interpol file not in jail, much less leading a clandestine international organization? Also, how did he come to lead the xcom project? While the file might not answer all of her questions, it would allow an educated guess as to his motives and whether he really was the man in charge. She glanced down the table. Jason and Piper nodded, while Percy smiled slightly and squeezed her hand. Blushing slightly, she turned back to Mark. "Okay."

Mark clapped his hands together and moved all but one of the folders to the side. "Brilliant!" he exclaimed, "let's get this party started." The giddy commander set a white notepad next to the file he had pulled aside, but he then frowned and searched through his pockets. "Well," Mark chuckled, "this is embarrassing. Percy, may I borrow your pen?"

Annabeth's mind raced at a million miles. She started to think about the possibilities. _They must have noticed the pen missing from wherever they were storing it, but why not assume it had rolled off the table or something? Unless they scanned him after the pen reappeared in his pocket. When had they done that? What did they know about the pen?_

As if the world knew what she was thinking, Seaweed-brain decided to play dumb. "What pen?"

"That pen," Mark countered, pointing towards Percy's pants, "the one that forms the bulge in your right pants pocket. Your hands hovered over that pocket when I first entered, much like during the operation we found you four on. Now may I please borrow your pen?"

Percy bit his lip, but, seeing no way out, handed the pen over. Mark made as if to write with the pen, then stopped and looked at the inscription on the side of the pen. " **Anaklusmos** ," he read, "Ancient Greek for 'riptide'." He stared at the teen's shocked faces, then stood up. "Yeah, Ancient Greece was a hobby of mine. Most ancient powers with big militaries are a hobby of mine, actually." He then looked at Riptide thoughtfully. "They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but what do you do if the pen _is_ a sword?" He then uncapped riptide into sword form, and tested it a few times. "Beautiful xiphos," He commented.

Percy looked confused. "xiphos?" he asked.

"Iron age straight sword. This is a little longer than most, though. Anyways, I really do need a pen." Mark picked up the cap of the pen, paused, and put the cap on the end of riptide's hilt. It shrunk back into a pen, but with the cap on the end, open for writing. Mark wrote with the glowing bronze ink from the pen the words "Subject notes: Percy Jackson."

A man poked his head through the door. "Don't torture the poor kid, Mark. Here's a pen that doesn't turn into a sword."

"Thanks, Bradford." The man who had apparently been the one pounding an indent with his head earlier nodded and left. As Mark recapped riptide, Annebeth thought obout the last few minutes. _He must have suspected that the pen was a sword,_ Annabeth deduced, _but why the stageplay?_ Suddenly, she shot up straight. _He wants us to know he is aware that we are armed, and he is not, but decided the risk was worth it._ Mark handed Riptide back to Percy, picked up his new pen, and opened the first folder. "And so, let us begin."

Mark started to read the first folder. "'Name: Perseus Jackson. Birth date: 1993-08…' Funky way the rest of the world has, righting dates, eh? 'Birth mother: Sally Jackson. Birth father: Unknown. Related Case files…' You know what?" Mark looked at the Heroes of Olympus. "Let's skip to the juicy stuff.

"'Tenth of June, Percy Jackson and his Mother, Sally Jackson, are reported as missing when their 1978 Camaro was discovered to have been destroyed in an explosion.' You were eleven at the time, right? 'Percy Jackson is suspect in the disappearance of his mother. The resulting manhunt revealed that Percy Jackson was in fact being blackmailed by his kidnapper, who led him on a chase across the country. During the manhunt, Percy Jackson was held responsible for the destruction of a greyhound bus and the bombing of Saint Louis Arch…'" Here, Mark's eyebrows began their upward journey. "'But all charges were cleared after his kidnapper was witnessed fighting the subject with rifles in Los Angeles…' my, we do get around, don't we…"

And so it went. Mark would read the files, his eyebrow reaching ever higher, occasionally commenting on the contents of the files. Most of Annabeth and her friend's adventures had ended up getting the attention of Interpol, but, thanks to the mist, the details were skewed. What worried Annabeth was the look on Mark's face: it was the same look she had whenever she believed she was close to the right answer. Whatever he was thinking, it could not be good for them.

Eventually, he finished reading all four files. "Okay," Mark began, "those are the craziest files ever. I am seriously surprised none of you are on anyone's terror watch list. I do have questions, but, a deals a deal." Mark passed his file to the demigods, and Annabeth scooped it up immediately. At Percy's wounded look, she replied "Oh, don't give me that! I am the least dyslexic out of all of us. Also, you will probably get more out of it if I Just give me the cliff notes."

Percy shrugged, and Annabeth read the file.

Much like Mark, Annabeth's eyebrow rose and rose the more she read. And what she read changed her view of the teenage commander in front of her.

According to the file, Mark Johnson was born on July 16th to two mortal parents. She had triple checked the file, both of his parents were indeed mortal. This fact made the sheer size of what he had done in the 16 short years he had been alive all the more impressive. By the time Mark was twelve, he had earned two bachelor's degrees, eight majors, (English literature, British history, Chemestry, and computer science) and two masters degrees, one being in physics, the other a Masters in Military History. He had 4 critically acclaimed scientific papers to his name, and a patent on a type of computer chip.

All of these were attributed to an assumed name that had been tied back to him by Interpol two years later. In those two years, the file Annabeth was looking at had formed. Mark had become a hacker, one who appeared to be able to get into any database, no matter how remote. CIA, KGB, even NASA, had all had their databases infiltrated and copied by a kid with a laptop.

Interpol finally caught up to him when a hack into Interpol's own database left behind an IP address. Fourteen at the time, Mark's interrogation and psyche report were deemed important enough to have been included in this file. According to them, the whole reason behind his hacking exploits was that Mark was looking for knowledge.

"Lack of correct knowledge is one of the major catalysts of every error in human history. D-day only worked because the Germans thought that the real attack was happening in southern France. Hannibal screwed over the Romans so many times because he knew how their command tactics and structure worked. I want to know all of the facts, so I want to know what everyone thinks is the correct story. That way, I have the best picture of the world. Saying that I will never publish any compromising information on the internet unless it is a necessary evil."

When asked why publishing it would be a necessary evil, Mark had responded, "While lack of knowledge is a catalyst for failure, knowledge kept secret can be more destructive than a thousand Death Stars, and bring down civilization with more certainty than any misfired atomic bomb."

Mark had gotten out of the Interpol incident with no charges, as he had disclosed their hundred most wanted criminal's locations for freedom. All of them had been right where Mark had said they would be.

The next year, in late December, Mark Had apparently found information dangerous enough for every organization on earth to have a month-long manhunt that made the one during seaweed brain's first quest look like a scavenger hunt. In the end, both what the information was and why the manhunt had been called off had been redacted from the document. Mark had been relatively inactive for the next year (read: ten pages added per month instead of forty in that year) until completely dropping off the map in March.

The file completely read, Annabeth gave the short version to Percy, Jason, and Piper. Jason was the first to speak. "Did you ever have freetime, or a girlfriend?"

Mark grinned. "Yes to both accounts. I am a master at wargames (that's Avalon Hill-style wargames and command wargames, miniatures are not my thing), and I have had two girlfriends in the last two years."

At that moment, Annabeth was certain that her mom probably kept tabs on Mark, and would hit on him as soon as he came of age. A little bit gross, but that was one of the minuses to your mom being a god.

Mark then got a twinkle in his eye. "But enough freebees. Let's do these questions this way: I'll ask a question, you will answer it however you will, and then you will ask me a question. Clarification or definition questions are okay to ask out of turn, follow-up questions are not. Okay let's begin."

Mark seemed to think about what he was going to ask. Annabeth herself wondered what he would decide to question them on. Their frequent travels and disappearances? Their uncanny ability to cause trouble? The strange photos?

"Are all of you related via the unknow side of your parentage?"

The demigods started. Whatever they had expected, this wasn't it. "Why would you think that?" Piper said nervously.

"Well," Mark said thoughtfully, that would be one way how all of you know each other, as it would be a statistic impossibility for families from opposite sides of the country to know each other from casual meeting or school. Also, the ADHD, Dyslexia, et cetera: both of those have been hypothesized to be genetic." Mark waited for the reluctant response.

Annabeth could tell that offing it as a coincidence would not fly in this case. "Fine. You caught us. Our turn." Annabeth met Percy's sea-green eyes, then continued. "What exactly was the catalyst of the massive Manhunt?"

Suddenly, Mark got the most somber she had ever seen him in the short time they had been. When he finally spoke, he was completely serious. "In my hacking, I discovered six documents, barely a fourth of a megabyte combined, that, should they ever had been released onto the internet, Civilization as we know it would have collapsed by the end of the week, more decisively than any Atomic strike could have. What was on those documents almost made me want to push the Big Red Button myself. Naturally, everyone wanted to get their hands on it, either to use it, or hold it for ransom. All that destruction in one button click… That was way too much power for anyone. So, I destroyed the documents as completely as possible, wiping all trace of them from this earth. That almost killed me, and got me some attention I never, ever want to experience again"

There was a deadly silence, which was broken by a humorless chuckle. "You know, that was my name for it, the Big Red Button. Blame the sci-fi." After another pause, Mark was back to normal. "Okay, Masters of the universe, next question." He reached into the file and pulled out a shakycam picture from the battle of New York. "Is this a Drakon or a Dragon?"

Another shocked silence followed this question. Annabeth recovered first. "To avoid another lengthy and one-sided debate, yes, that is a drakon. How can you see it, and how long have you seen monsters and crazy stuff like this?"

"Besides the aliens, this morning was the first time." Mark shifted uncomfortably. "Keep in mind, though, the last time I was outside was March, I am kind-of running a war down here."

That was when it clicked for Annabeth. _His fighting with the aliens,_ she realized, _is what let the mist slip for him. He has come to expect everything, and accept the crazy reality that is life on Earth._

Mark paused before continuing, then grinned yet again. This one was different, though. It was a _I just found the checkmate_ grin. "This isn't really a question. I have a theory that has been in my head since I heard your Greek and saw your ancient swords." Mark paused dramatically. "So here it goes: The theory is that the Greek gods are your parents and that you four have been fighting their demons in secret. How close am I?"

Four shocked stares – not ones that said "are you crazy," but ones that said "holy hell he found our secret."

The stares were broken by a loud boom, followed by a seven-foot tall god and a goddess appearing right in front of Mark. The goddess, Athena, spoke in her most booming voice of doom.

"So, mortal. You and your insignificant organization have discovered our most closely guarded secret, and dare to toy with our most courageous heroes. Prepare to face the consequences of your actions!"

For a second, merely Mark stared in mild shock at the two Gods, then he tapped on the watch he had on his wrist.

"Hey, Louis? Could you cancel my meeting with Van Doorn? My smiting might take all evening."


	5. Ch 5: Say my name

**Hello, Internet! Welcome to chapter five… After finally writing out this chapter after planning out the entire story, I would have to say I think that the theme song of this story is probably "Flaws" by Bastille. The song has come up on my music player** _ **while on shuffle**_ **during every writing session I have had.**

 **I would like to take a minute to thank the 128 individual viewers of the first chapter and the four favorites and six followers. I actually feel like I am doing something productive now! ;)**

 **Several quick announcements: The poll for potential one-shots is open now! Vote on what you want to see more of in a one-shot! These chapters take a lot of work, but I can crank out a one shot as soon as you let me know what you want to see.**

 **I am proud to announce I have started an XCOM forum, the sole subject of which is any XCOM crossovers! This is a fun universe to write crossovers in, and I wanted to give budding writers a place to bounce crossover Ideas in XCOM off each-other. I want to see what other stories someone can come up with in this universe, so hop on over to forum/XCOM-crossover-forum/185064/ !**

 **Speaking of other stories, I have a Doctor Who Shingeki no Kyojin crossover in the works, which is a loose continuation of DottyDevine's "Children of Time and Space," Which I heartily recommend to any Whovians or Attack on Titan fans reading this. I have permission from the author, who is considering her own continuation of the story. I can't wait to compare notes on concepts. Because of this, there will be a large gap between this chapter and the next update. Keep your eyes out for the new story!**

 **Lastly, I am still looking for a cover for this fanfic. The only requirements are it must be PG and I am trying to avoid the "XCOM emblem imposed with emblem of crossover subject," as every other XCOM crossover does that.**

 **With all that over with, on with the smiting!**

 **No, I still do not own Percy Jackson or XCOM.**

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(Mark POV)

Mark absolutely hated being right.

He would probably get flak for saying that out loud due to his sherlockian reputation, but that still didn't make things any better.

Last December, not even a full year ago, he had very similar thoughts. The chess game of the puzzle he had set his sight out to solve had proved too difficult an intellectual challenge to not try to piece together. And solve it he did, only to discover the most dangerous documents in human history.

 _At least The Big Red Button wouldn't smite you for insolence,_ Mark thought.

Mark activated his watch com and spoke to his orderly. "Hey, Louis? Could you cancel my meeting with Van Doorn? My smiting might take all evening."

His watch spoke back to him nervously, "Umm… what is going on down there, sir?"

Mark sighed. "Just cancel the meeting, Louis."

"Yes sir."

Mark turned his gaze back to the Greek deities, the guy of the duo looking a little confused. The Goddess on the left had intense grey eyes with the thousand-thoughts-a-minute stare, black hair, and was wearing a white toga with a battle helmet. Given what she was wearing, and her resemblance to Annabeth (the obvious brains of the group), Mark hypothesized that this was Athena, goddess of wisdom. The god was an athletic middle-aged man with a mischievous face and a winged helmet on his head, as well as a Caduceus so he was definitely Hermes.

Mark quickly pondered what his best course of action was. While he was dubious if these were capitol-g divine entities, they were real enough and powerful enough to spawn myths, so his usual banter and swagger would not fly if they were as proud as the myths made them seem. The Ancient gear they were wearing at very least showed that one foot was in the door to the ancient world here. Going for the cordial respect angle was probably the best bet.

Mark bowed gracefully, some stuff on medieval etiquette from both books on medieval life and _Game of Thrones_ coming back to him. "My lord and lady, how may I be of service?" Mark paused and looked at the shocked faces throughout the room. "Too formal?"

"You are acting a lot less… apprehensive than most would in your situation," Athena explained.

"Well," Mark replied as he stood up, "just yesterday, we had the gauntlet of an experimental power suit hacked by a bored engineer who used it to raid the liquor cabinet. Trust me, after walking in on a disembodied glove stealing all of the Vodka while being chased by an annoyed Shen, nothing is weird anymore. Also, we fight aliens. I am used to being in the presence of beings that can smite me just by looking at me funny."

On the inside, Mark was terrified about the many, many ways this could go wrong. However, he did what he did best and flashed his signature grin. "So," Mark began, clapping his hands together. What can I do for you, Lady Athena?"

Mark was not entirely sure what happened, but something that was not the stoicness the goddess usually had on her face flashed across her expression. "I have been keeping an eye on you for a while, Mark, and your intelligence is as sharp in person as it is in passing." Mark was put off a little by this statement. _I have a godly stalker. Every government on earth I already knew about is stalking me, so why not?_ Athena continued. "The most important question of today is this: what will you do with the information you discovered?"

Mark had pondered this for a long time while he was forming a hypotheses. He knew he was only going to tell Vahlen, Shen, Bradford, and maybe bravo squad the whole truth, in order to reduce information leaks and prevent the mass panic attack the council will have. To be honest, whenever Mark withheld information from the council, they very rarely asked questions, which was fine with Mark as long as he was able to protect earth his way without hinderance.

 _Speaking of the three musketeers…_ Mark decided it was time for his three most trusted department heads to make themselves known. "Voice override code Alpha Theta Epsilon: open blast shield to lab number two."

"Request granted."

Slowly, the two-way mirror that was actually the weapon disassembly lab's blast shield rose up, revealing Shen, Vahlen, and Bradford…

The last of whom was holding an assault rifle.

Mark was pissed. "Come on, Bradford! I told you to post guards at the door, but to not freak out at the crazy shit that was bound to happen! I was in as much danger as if we were using this lab for its intended purpose while I was in it." _Wait,_ thought Mark, _that came out wrong_.

"My point is," he continued, "and there is no way to say this without some irony, but shooting at the beings in front of us might not be the best first contact policy.

"Sorry if I don't share your sentiment, Commander," Bradford tensely replied. He had his rifle leveled at the two Olympians. "Now let's start with who you two really are."

Mark rolled his eyes. Bradford was loyal to both Mark and the project to a fault, but he was horribly stubborn when it came to his world views. The combination of these two traits were probably going to get him struck by divine lightning right now. _Or maybe turned into an owl,_ Mark thought, looking at Athena who was… bemused?

Mark continued to scold Bradford. "Did you miss the last hour, Bradford? The evidence is stacked up to show that the Greek myths are real. My guess is that they alter normal human's perceptions of the events, but some mortals are able to see through the deep mist clouding our perception. Hang on," Mark turned to Athena, "Wasn't there something about capital-M Mist in the odyssey?"

"Correct again, Mark. That is what we call the veil that obscures us, the Mist," Athena replied.

"Thanks," Mark said, turning back to hear Bradford's response.

"I'm sorry commander, it will take a little more to convince—"

"Theodore William Bradford," Hermes said, "please put your gun down so we can have a civilized conversation."

For the first time in remembered history, Mark had a look of pure shock on his face. Even the Great Vodka Heist had proved unable to do that. Vahlen and Shen held equally shocked stares on Bradford, who dropped his gun on the floor right next to his jaw.

Being ADHD and not knowing Bradford, Percy spoke up. "Why is everyone looking like that man was brought back from the dead?"

"Because," Mark explained, still looking at Bradford "he has told no one in his entire life his full name voluntarily. I am not sure if even his mother knows what his first name."

Any last doubts of the nature of the beings that had materialized into the room were shattered when these words were uttered. It was a shame that Mark had the cameras in this room disabled, because that footage would convince anyone at XCOM of the omnipresent power of the Olympians.

Shaking his head, Mark introduced everyone formally. During this, Mark noticed that Bradford wouldn't meet his eyes. "Crazy Greek people, Meet Central Officer Bradford, Doctor Adelvina Vahlen, our chief scientist, and Doctor Alexander Shen, our head of engineering. They are the most important people in XCOM, and my most trusted advisors."

Mark looked at Athena. "To answer your earlier question, I will not do anything with this knowledge at the moment other than keep it from the council that funds my organization. I also have a 'mass hallucination' card in play to explain the crazy events of the last UFO operation. Knowing xcom, there will be a crazy shot through two windows and a wall made by an alien that hits someone important next week, and the great spatula hallucination will fade from memory. The bigger question is this: what will _you_ do with _me_?"

Athena responded, "I believe Hermes had a message to deliver." Athena nodded to the messenger, whose clothes changed into that of an ordinary postman, and his Caduceus had become one of the bulky tablets you see the UPS guy carrying. He clicked on the tablet with a pen that looked to have the snakes on it still, and seemed to be bringing up the shipping order.

Hermes cleared his throat. "Yes. 'To the one in charge of XCOM, I bequeath that you obey this command if you wish to continue to save earth. To establish co-operation and trust between both of our worlds, the three demigods you have met, including my son, will stay for one week to monitor your activities and see how you operate. You will then meet their camp and attend a meeting at mount Olympus where we will decide your fate. We will retaliate ruthlessly if you mistreat our agreement. Yours in Buisness, Zeus"

Mark mulled over this new development. _Take your Demigods to work day? Not at the top of my possible outcomes, but certainly more interesting._ Mark finally asked his burning question. "Do all oligarchic leaders take the same drama lessons, because Zeus is on the same level of drama as the council is?"

Hermes broke out in laughter. "Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it. Good luck everyone, we have other duties to attend to."

Athena only looked at Mark. "We will meet again." Everyone averted their eyes, and the gods vanished in a flash of light.

Mark looked at his fellow XCOM staff, and decided they would talk later. "Alright people, these interns will be getting the official tour and a cover story from me. Council of Elrond at 14:00 if no alerts sound. And Bradford."

For the first time since his name was spoken, their eyes met. Bradford looked like he had opened his house to find an intruder pointing his own gun at him. He was embarrassed that he had been found out as easily as that, and knew that Mark could now find out anything he wanted about the Central Officer.

Mark took a deep breath. He needed to rebuild this bridge before it fell completely. "I will trust your judgement on when you think it is necessary to research any new information gathered here today, but I will want to talk about it eventually."

The unspoken respect of privacy was obviously appreciated, and Bradford looked more relaxed than when he had first been seen through the glass. He and the two doctors left, leaving Mark alone with the demigods.

"So," Mark began, grinning yet again, "I for one am glad no smiting has occurred this evening. Let the tour of doom commence!"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

(Percy Jackson POV)

Percy was loving the severe lack of doom on this tour so far.

Commander Mark was leading Percy and the three other demigods down the hallway the lab they had been in was located in past several other science-looking rooms and out into what looked like a service elevator. When they got in, Mark turned around and scratched the back of his head.

"I suppose I should explain what XCOM actually is to you, as well as where we are in this war."

Percy almost glared at Mark, but decided not to. The look on

"XCOM is a top-secret organization that is funded and reports to The Council, the representatives of the 16 countries which voted to fund and activate our organization. I know it's a cliché, but we are earth's last and only line of defense.

"On February twenty-eighth, we were activated and I was set to assume command at Nine-am March first. Before I got here and could assume command, however, Germany called for support from the first abduction in a major urban center. Four soldiers were dispatched by Bradford to meet up with a German recon team, and so began operation Devil's Moon."

Mark pushed a button in the elevator and continued. "If you ask Bradford or the Council, what went down was Bradford's fault and the losses were his casualties since I wasn't even in the limo yet when first contact happened. I disagree. There was absolutely no way to anticipate or avoid the events that occurred. The short version is that we discovered that the German recon team had been decimated by an unknown force. The four soldiers in our recon team swept the area to discover one member of the recon team was being mind-controlled by what we later would call a sectoid commander. The mind-controlled German suicide-bombed one of our members and an ambush occurred. Only one man got out alive.

"After that, I assumed control, and we got things into order. Over the past six months, we have stopped alien terror missions, lost three more soldiers to alien operations, reversed alien weapons and armor, shot down, carjacked, and stripped enough UFO's to make any pirate jealous, and, most importantly…" Mark paused dramatically. The elevator had stopped, and Percy's hand had drifted towards Riptide.

"We built this organization from 50 men in an undergrown bunker to a formidable special operations unit."

The elevator doors opened, and Percy's jaw dropped.

He was staring at a massive room with a hologlobe in the middle. Techs bustled every which-way. A giant board sat in the corner, giving mission data. This was a nerve center, one of the most impressive Percy had ever seen.

Mark was grinning at the look on Percy's face. "Ladies and gentlemen, assorted Demigods, welcome to XCOM."


	6. Ch 6: Why saving the world sucks

**Hello, Internet, and welcome to chapter 6 of XCOM: Operation Angry Gods! This chapter is a lot more sober and less crazy than the last few, but I felt the need to slow down and lay down some important story threads. For those of you that miss the crazy, please hold out for chapter eight, you will thank me later.**

 **Some of my more observant readers may have noticed the story I recently published was NOT the Doctor Who / SNK crossover you were promised, but something completely different.**

 **The long and short of it is that I am writing for fun. If I am not having fun with a project, I will drop it. I will definitely write that idea at some point, but the writer's block got to the point where something different was needed, so I set that Idea back on the shelf. Apologies go to DottyDivine and anyone who was looking forward to that story.**

 **On the plus side, please check out my new story, ARMA: Callsign Fury! This was the result of playing ARMA 3 to vent writers block when all of a sudden the song "test flight" from the first HTTYD came up on my "Areal dogfight" playlist, and, well, see the result for yourself at** s/11617212/1/ARMA-Callsign-Fury

 **Please Enjoy the new chapter of Angry Gods!**

 **And introducing the quote of the day! Today's quote:**

" **Oh pack it up, and hit the road**

 **And only take my lighter**

 **I've seen the glitz, I've seen the glam**

 **But I prefer the pay dirt"**

 **Imagine Dragons, "Trouble"**

 **I do not own XCOM or BoO.**

(Annabeth's POV)

"Leo would have loved this place."

As soon as those words slipped out, Annabeth immediately wished she could take it back. Jason and Piper let their heads sag, while Mark looked on with a look of – was that pity?

They were standing in the middle of the Engineering section, with Mark still giving his tour of the base. So far, the group had visited mission control ("The heart of the operation, that's the situation room, that's the big board, and that is where Doctor Strangelove sits"), Research ("The ground-pounders destroy it, Oppenheimer reverse engineers it"), the med bay ("If you were smart enough to duck, you end up here"), MEC lab ("Many a Gandam reference has come from these halls"), the foundry ("eggheads 2.0") and a magnificent satellite nexus ("Allows for many eyes in the sky, though the council wanted my hide for the cost").

Even though the research division was fascinating, and the design of the Nexus was incredible, Engineering took the cake as Annabeth's favorite part of the base. When they had first entered, Mark had described this place as "the lovechild of tesla and modern industry. Gramps – er, Doctor Shen – has manufactured all of XCOM's equipment and directed facility construction from down here. Everything from the Firestorm interceptor to the lowly .25 caliber conventional pistols we used to use were built in this room of a workshop. You name it and, given time, we can build it."

Back in the present, Annabeth's eyes met Mark's and a silent exchange occurred. _I have experienced loss too, so I will not ask now, but I expect at least the story of what happened to him._

Annabeth was again struck by how much like Percy the Commander sometimes acted. He deliberately put on a show as an aloof Mr. Holmes, but he was a capable leader and a kindhearted person.

"Hey, Commander!"

The four demigods plus Mark turned towards the newcomer. As they did, Mark's eyes lit up then glossed over. "Hey, Rachel! How is it going?"

Standing before them was not the Rachel they knew, but a five-foot seven teenage girl with brown hair, hazel eyes, and grease all over her face. She was wearing the same green jacket as the rest of the engineering staff, but she obviously was one of the more hands-on engineers in the group. She would definitely fit in at the Hephaestus Cabin.

"Great," Rachel replied, wiping her face with a rag off of her belt, "we got the alien computers loaded up onto the Firestorm, the engines no longer try to explode when we start her up, so I say we are on track."

"What is a Firestorm? Some kind of internet browser?" Percy interrupted.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "That's Fire _fox_ , seaweed brain."

"When was the last time I used a computer, owl head?"

"Owl head? Really, Kelp wad?"

Rachel frowned at Percy and Annabeth's exchange. "Who are Larry and Curley?"

Mark quickly responded, "They were interns sent to inspect us by some weird organization attached to the council. You know how they get."

 _Damn,_ Annabeth thought, _Mark is really quick on his feet, and that is a totally believable sales pitch._

Unfortunately, Rachel seemed to know Mark too well, and gave him a skeptical eyebrow. She wasn't given time to ponder as Mark quickly changed the subject. "So, show us how Shen's baby is coming along."

"Come on," Rachel giggled, "it's my baby too! Okay, I'll give you guys a sneak peek, but don't tell Shen, old Sulu really wants to keep the final look a surprise. Let's get going, captain Kirk!"

Mark blushed as Rachel led them up a small freight elevator to an alcove off from what looked to be the main hangar. A tarp was thrown over a half-built small UFO. At least, that was what it looked like. The engines were the same as the alien craft they had seen earlier, although it looked like XCOM had built it with reversed engineered tech.

Mark turned around suddenly as they approached the UFO. "My apologies, I keep forgetting to introduce people. My little interns, this is Rachel, Doctor Shen's right hand woman and a miracle worker with UFO tech."

Rachel blushed. "Mark," she mumbled, "Shen is the one in charge."

"Yes, but you were the one to help Vahlen and the scientists to crack the coding on the computers _and_ work on every single final assembly and tune-up of every item manufactured in this base. I swear, you were born with a Torq-set screwdriver in one hand and a hack-saw in the other."

"Yes, flirting people," Percy said, evoking blushes from Mark and Rachel, "but what is the firestorm?"

Rachel went into a Q-style lecture. "It is an interceptor made off of reverse-engineered alien tech, our newest bid to close the gap in the air-game. It uses two alien computers for navigation and one of their power sources to work. It has a top speed of Mach 4.2 at 500 feet, faster than any manmade plane ever. Between this and the plasma cannon we got off the line last week, we are ready to level the playing field and give those bastards hell."

After admiring the UFO for a minute, an alarm started blaring. "COMMANDER TO THE SITUATION ROOM, COMMANDER TO THE SITUATION ROOM."

Commander Johnson sighed. "That would be the meeting we have," Mark said, gesturing to the demigods. "See you later, Q, don't give bond the Aston."

"In your dreams, Nerd boy. See you at the table tomorrow."

Mark sighed as they walked across the hangar. Annabeth found it horribly obvious that the engineer and the commander were smitten with each other.

"What table," Percy asked, "some special dinner?"

Mark flashed his grin. "No, the weekly D&D game is tomorrow. Now, let's get on with the bureaucracy!

(Percy's POV)

Apparently, bureaucracy meant an alien biology lesson.

After moving into a meeting room, the debriefing had begun. As the demigods had been given most of the "how" and "why" during the tour, the XCOM portion of the meeting had been spent giving details on the different aliens XCOM had encountered so far. After that, the demigods had given a brief overview on how their world worked and the big twelve Olympians, as well as the most common monsters to be encountered.

"Usually," Annabeth concluded, "I would recommend acquiring celestial bronze or imperial gold, as mortal weapons can't touch monsters. However, if you really have found a way to safely contain plasma and ionize the gas to create it for a weapon, then theoretically, that could be as deadly as bronze."

"All the same," Mark interjected, "it's not a bad idea to stock up on a few swords. I've always wanted to try my hand at fencing." He mimed some Olympic-games-style thrusts, to the eyeroll of Bradford.

Percy saw a lot of Annabeth in Mark. He was constantly thinking and used this to form clever plans and an extreme wit. Mark also seemed to be very perceptive, to an uncomfortable level.

Speaking of… "Any questions?" Annabeth wrapped up.

Vahlen's hand shot up. "How does your DNA differ from a normal human's, and do all demigods receive powers."

Of course that question would come up, with apparently thirty-two college degrees between Mark, Shen, and Vahlen.

Annabeth had an answer ready. "The interesting thing is that, genetically speaking, we only have one single helix in our DNA strands, as the godly side is not detectable or chromasomic, so it doesn't really count. All demigods get abilities from their parents. Some demigods have an inhuman proficiency in one skill or another, while others have a limited control over an element or part of their parent's realm. For instance, I am very intelligent and a great architect and weaver due to my parentage, while Seaweed Brain, being a son of Poseidon," there were small "oh's" from the three XCOM advisors as they realized the significance of Annabeth's pet names for Percy, "has control over water and can heal quickly in it. Next question"

Shen's hand went up. "Would it be possible for our facilities to synthesize this 'celestial bronze?'"

"Do you have a ten-million degree forge and cyclopes with innate magical ability?"

"… No."

"Then I'm sorry, you'll have to ask Olympus. Yes, Commander?"

Mark grinned. "Come one," he said, "You are _way_ too young to worry about titles. Then again, look who's talking. Call me Mark." Suddenly, there was an abrupt change in his tone. Percy then knew what Mark was going to ask. "So, who was Leo, and how did he die?"

Percy ground his teeth. He hated that those old memories of the war had been dragged up. He was still recovering from the nightmares, they all were. Even two years couldn't heal wounds that deep.

However, Mark and company needed to know about the wars. It had been avoided to not dredge up any old memories, but it was important. XCOM deserved to know, they had been very forward with Percy and company.

Percy stood up. "Two years ago," Percy began, sliding a picture out of his wallet, "The four of us, as well as Leo; Frank, a son of Mars – no, not Ares, Mars. I believe Annie explained it in her lecture – and Hazel, a daughter of Pluto, were all the part of the second great prophecy, the Prophecy of the Seven."

"Second?" Shen queried.

Percy looked down at the picture he had pulled out. It was him, Leo, and Frank goofing off on deck of the Argo II, with Leo's arm was on fire and Frank laughing hard. Good times.

Percy shook himself back to the present, "To keep this from dragging on and on, the first prophecy lead to a second war with the Titans in New York City, which is where Olympus is, and said at age of sixteen I would make a choice that would save or destroy Olympus. Needless to say, I survived, and apocalypse was averted.

"Back to the seven." Percy pointed at Leo on the photo. "Leo was a son of Hephaestus and a fire user, a rare and dangerous ability. He was also a brilliant mechanic, and builder of the ship we had used, the Argo II, on our quest. He was intensely ADHD, even by demigod standards, and had an annoying habit of setting himself on fire." Percy smiled at the memory. "The prophecy itself predicted that the seven would kill Gaea in the war against the giants, sons of Gaea that can only be killed by a god and demigod working together. More specifically, the prophecy said 'to Storm or Fire the World must fall.'"

Mark pointed at Jason. "So he was storm," the commander guessed, "and Leo was fire."

"Bingo," Percy continued, "but the next part of the prophecy implied that whoever it was in the end was going to die, so when Leo went out in a giant fireball with the Goddess, he had the physician's cure with him, something that could cure death."

"Did it work?"

"Don't know," Jason said after an eternity, taking out his own picture of Leo. All of the seven had a picture of their fallen comrade on them at all times. "He went up, and never came down. We think he may have ended out on Calypso's Island, but…" Jason closed his eyes. "He was one of the few actual casualties in the war. In total, what? Ten demigods, maybe fifteen?"

Percy shrugged. "All I can tell you is that while there were more casualties in the Titan War, but the ones in the battle with Gaea hurt a _lot_ more."

Mark had that thousand-question look, but he could see that Percy and the others had not quite recovered from that battle. In the end, he surprised everyone by saying, "Jason, may I borrow that picture? You'll get it back tomorrow, I promise."

Stunned, Jason nodded in agreement. As Mark slipped the photo into his pocket, he spoke gently. "I have only been fighting for mankind since August, but I have fought for my own place in the world for much longer. There is always a price to pay when you fight for something you believe in, but when that thing you fight for is so others may live… well, I can say from experience, that price is enormous, and I will be paying it for the rest of my life."

There was a somber silence. "Well, one last thing before the mope train leaves the station," Mark said, pressing a buzzer. "Given the nature of both of our operations, I felt that choosing one squad to go on missions where encounters with your kind are likely was a good idea, to keep knowledge of you guys compartmentalized. To me, the choice was obvious."

As Mark finished speaking, the doors opened and Percy took a defensive stance. In came the five soldiers from the clearing, plus a sixth soldier who looked like he thought anything above twenty degrees Fahrenheit was sweltering hot. Lazer-Rambo and Hawkeye also adopted similar stances, while the rest of the squad hanged back, waiting to see what would happen.

"Percy," Mark said, meeting the son of the sea-god's eye. "You can tell them as much or as little as you want, just know you will be working with them. And play nice boys, you don't want a repeat of the crash site, or this time it will be me stabbing the perpetrators with an iron knife." Mark stood up, and Vahlen, Shen, and Bradford left the room. "Get acquainted, then you might want to check out the armory. We have all the toys."

With that, Mark left.

After an awkward silence, Percy could think of only one thing to say. "Sorry my girlfriend stabbed you."

Terminator glared at Annabeth, who was facepalming. This was the start of a beautiful friendship.


	7. Ch 7: Mark has a Nam moment

**Hello, Internet, and welcome to chapter seven of XCOM: Operation Angry Gods! I deeply apologise for the length between updates this time. I fell into the deep hole of writers block and got yet another story idea and am having school trouble... sigh  
**

 **A big thank-you to my 12 followers and 6 favorites this story has garnered. I thank those who support me by reviewing, favoriting, or even taking the time to read my story all the way to this point. And if you are discovering this story long after I finish it or, god forbid, abandon it, Thank you for reading this little slice of my life as a fanfiction writer.**

 **If you are still reading the AN, I still need a cover for this story. Please contact me via PMing this account if you are interested.**

 **A short AN, yay! (Please read and review)**

 **I do not own XCOM or Percy Jackson**

 **Quote of the day:**

" **But I won't cry for yesterday**

 **There's an ordinary world**

 **Somehow I have to find**

 **And as I try to make my way**

 **To the ordinary world**

 **I will learn to survive"**

 **-Duran Duran, "Ordinary World"**

* * *

(Percy's POV)

Percy woke up in a sweat. He HATED demigod nightmares.

At first, Percy's dream had seemed like the run-of-the-mill, demons of your past haunting you nightmare. Sure it was scary, but it was merely the side effect of going through two wars too many. Percy sometimes had dreams where he relived his biggest regrets, but that was something any psychologist would expect if someone had gone quite literally through hell.

Percy didn't like these dreams, but he absolutely hated the other type.

After he was dreamjacked by whoever, he was standing inside a UFO that looked to be a different type than the one they had seen. There seemed to be 5 aliens inside the craft, including two mutons wearing fancier gear than the ones Percy had seen earlier. In the center of the group…

Percy tried to bolt, but he couldn't move in the dream. What was that thing?

"So the new ones have found an ancient ally?" The thing spoke. Wait, spoke is the wrong word. It was as if this new alien was picking apart Percy's mind to talk to him. "We have been curious about your kind for a long time, since we first saw your world cycles before."

Percy felt his body slowly dissolve, turning to ash in the gaze of the new alien. "Run, little hero. If the new one does not come, we will look for new ones in your kind."

It was then that Percy had bolted awake.

Percy sighed, getting out of bed. It was 1 A.M., but there was no way he could have gotten back to sleep after that dream. He wouldn't wake up Annabeth, or his other demigod friends, as they would know immediately why he had woken up, and he didn't want to worry them. He actually considered waking up delta squad, as this seemed to concern their world.

Percy chuckled at this. After explaining everything to the six soldiers, the XCOM troops had come to accept that the demigods were half Greek God. After this, everyone had gotten to know each other. Terminator, The Assault trooper, spoke very little and seemed socially awkward, but was magic with a shotgun. The other assault, AK, was a proud Russian who served as the vibrant class clown. Instead of the shotgun used by Terminator, AK used a plasma rifle. Soylent was the optimistic LMG wielder who had helped to break the ice. Finally, Hawkeye was the sniper with a mouth who was kept in check by the group medic, Bones. They were a rowdy group when not on the job, and the four demigods had taken to the group after a short trip to the armory.

After remembering this afternoon, Percy decided to head over to the armory and the attached training center. Sure, he was rubbish with a gun, but it was somewhere to practice. With that decided, he got dressed and grabbed riptide.

Percy walked through the corridors of XCOM HQ, Percy was struck by the lack of still active technicians and soldiers, as they had been flowing by nonstop since the demigods had arrived. It was still only ten people that Percy had passed in the halls, but even those people were heading either off shift or back onto shift.

Percy went into the armory, passing by the racks of standard-issue weapons as well as the room Hawkeye had dubbed "the Matrix locker," for the sheer amount of non-issue weapons on display in it (Apparently, some idiot on the council had thought that covert operatives would need access to a variety of conventional weapon in case it was required for their cover, and had donated most of those weapons after the Covert Ops program was started, but absolutely no-one at EXALT used conventional weapons.), and headed for the training grounds. To Percy's surprise, however, the room was already occupied.

Standing at the striped line that marked the edge of the holorange was Commander Mark Johnson. He had the holotargets active, and was using an AK-47 to pick off the targets as fast as they appeared. Mark only used one bullet per target, so absorbed that he didn't even acknowledge that the door had opened.

The shots were precise, but to Percy, there seemed to be a suppressed rage behind the snapped reload and the aggressive stance.

Percy was most caught off guard by Mark's expression. Mark's look was a mix of rage, remorse, and sadness. Percy had seen that expression before, on demigods who had lost a battle, or a loved one, and went to fill the void with training. Percy had never taken the commander for someone who had lost a battle. After all, XCOM was winning, right?

A million emotions crossed Mark's face as he shot the last few bullets out of his gun and a calm prerecorded voice stated "end of exercise." In spite of the fact he was stationary the whole time, the commander was panting heavily. He looked ready to sit down and mourn when he noticed Percy was there.

The change was immediate. Mark still looked tired, but he put on a big grin and swept his arms out wide in a greeting. A grin spread across his face, and the sadness vanished from everywhere but the corners of his eyes. "Percy! I see I am not the only one with insomnia. You wouldn't happen to know where this came from, would you?"

Percy blinked for a second at the sudden change in demeanor, then looked at what Mark was holding. It was a 40-inch long sword, much longer than any Roman or Greek blade. It also was a completely different design than most Greek or Roman blades, with a strangely shaped handle and pommel as well as only tapering to a point in the last inch or so of blade.

Weirdest of all was that it was a Celestial Bronze blade.

"What type of sword is that?" Percy asked.

"It is a Bastard sword," Mark supplied, "which, in medieval times, meant a sword of unusual or questionable properties. In this case, the blade is similar in length to an ordinary medieval longsword and is light enough to be wielded with one hand like many longswords, but the handle is specifically balanced for one _or_ two hands, providing much more versatility than your two-handed longsword."

Mark examined the beautiful blade. "The hexagonal cross-section and design of the pommel makes me believe this blade originates from England during the time of the third crusade. A demigod owned it, obviously, due to the metal used. When I woke up this morning, I found the sword sitting next to my bed. Any Idea how it might have gotten there?"

Percy shrugged. "Sounds like someone from my world wants you to be armed. Do you know how to use it?"

Mark smirked. "I know many different theories and techniques of sword combat. But I also know something even more important."

"What's that?"

Marks smirk broke into a full out grin. "The first thing to go to shit in any combat scenario is the theory."

Now Percy was grinning as he broke out riptide. "Let's see how right you are."

"Excellent," Mark said, hefting his sword. "Let's get the ref."

* * *

 **(Mark's POV)**

Mark and Percy strode onto the holorange, their weapons held at the side. Mark went over to a console and typed in a few commands. "A couple of the Americans and a few Australians," Mark explained, "Are members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and all own the tourney swords the SCA uses. One of the engineers got the idea to draw up a tourney program for them to regulate single combat. They only used it once because the war got really crazy shortly after that, but it's still in here. I will just need to make a few modifications, and…" A hologram of a man in medieval attire carrying a staff appeared.

"Gentleman," The hologram said, "you are here to test your honor and might in single combat. The fight will be to the first strike—"

"Or, in my case, when your sword passes through me," Mark interjected.

"—to any of the valid target areas," the hologram continued. "These include the head, neck, torso, hip, arms, and legs. I will call hold to cease the fight if one of you is victorious, it is unsafe to continue, or you get too close to the boundaries." Here, the holorange materialized a floating yellow line to signify the boundary. "Grappling, hooking, or grabbing the opponent or his weapon with your off hand is prohibited. Do each of you accept these rules and will uphold them with all the honor due to you?"

By this time, Mark and Percy had taken opposite sides of the "Arena." They both had determined looks on their face, and were ready for the spar. "Yes!" They both shouted.

"Honor the martial." Mark saluted the martial with his sword, and Percy followed suit. "Salute who thou fights for." Percy saluted in Annabeth's general direction, while Mark gripped something in his pocket and saluted to the Northwest. "Honor your opponent." Percy and Mark eagerly saluted each other.

The hologram stepped back. "Lay on!"

Percy raised riptide to a guarding position, while Mark stepped back with his left leg and held the hilt of his sword with both hands, right hand over left on the hilt, so that the hilt was above his head while the blade was pointing diagonally downward across his front. In medieval swordfighting this was known as the "Hanging" stance, and is arguably more versatile and deadly than the much more common middle stance. The two fighters circled each other, looking to see who would be the first to strike.

Mark was looking for an opening. He knew he was outmatched, but wanted to at very least force Percy to attack from the defensive, as that meant he could see Percy at his best. He wanted to see why the demigods looked to him for his opinion, as it obviously wasn't for charisma or smarts. It was for his loyalty and his fighting ability, both of which were great and terrifying.

Mark saw his opening when Percy glanced away for a fraction of a second. Mark quickly let go of the blade with his left hand and thrusted towards Percy's chest, the blade twisting 180 degrees with the motion. Percy quickly and easily deflected the blow. Percy brought his sword down in a diagonal arc, which Mark parried using the momentum from his initial thrust. Both hands back on the hilt and his sword down in low guard, Mark brought the arc of bronze death up in a slash to above his head, then immediately down in a diagonal slice. Percy dodged both of these and then moved forward to attack. Mark grinned as Percy moved inside of Mark's reach, using his shorter sword to his advantage. Mark brought his right leg back and his sword close to his chest, ready to parry any thrusts or stabs. Percy feinted to Mark's left, and Mark responded by bringing his feet together and his sword pointing down the length of his left side to parry. Before Mark could correct his mistake, Percy swung his sword around and at Mark's chest from the right side. Mark's reflexes were too slow, and the blade found its mark.

Mark felt a chill as the blade passed through him, and mimed putting his hands on his side and collapsing in pain. "You got me!" He called. He grinned, and accepted the hand Percy offered him.

"You did better than me," Percy said "I was on the ropes at first."

Mark gave Percy a face. "You are kidding, Right? You barely flinched at my attacks, and I never came close to hitting you!"

Percy blushed, and Mark couldn't help but admire the sheer honesty of the demigod in front of him. Heck, it reminded him of Sarah…

A chill ran through the commander and the blood drained through his face. _Sarah…_ the one time he hadn't been there for her…

Percy walked forward as Mark sat down on the floor, overwhelmed with grief. Percy took both of their swords and set them to the side. He sat right next to Mark, and sighed.

"Who was it?"

Mark looked at Percy's face. Percy was a Greek hero, and if anyone would understand his sadness, it would be him. The Greeks _invented_ the tragedy. Many Greek heroes led sad lives and had a sad death.

 _But,_ Mark quipped in his head to himself, _at least there is symmetry_.

"Mark took a deep breath, and started talking. "About halfway into the first month of Alien contact, things were looking up. We had captured two sectoids in our last op and were working on studying their weapons. We had a top science staff and our engineering staff was growing almost daily. We had not lost any men since the first mission. Most importantly, we were developing prototype laser weaponry. Things were looking up."

Mark rubbed his eyes, then continued. "Then, we received word of the Terror attacks."

"I saw that on the news. It was horrible. It was Seattle that got hit right."

Mark nodded. "Seattle was my hometown." Percy's eyes widened. "As soon as I heard where it was," Mark continued, "I went on the Skyranger and commanded my troops from the plane. We lost one man, and contained most of the aliens to Fremont and Ballard. A pod of aliens detached from the main group, however, and became the first and only alien force to attack a suburb instead of the main city. Worse, it was the suburb I lived in, Bothell, in the four blocks that made up my own neighborhood."

Mark felt a flurry of emotions building in his chest. "We were still mopping up in main Seattle, and we couldn't send the main squad. I couldn't just stand by though, so I grabbed some the skyranger door guards and a few national guardsmen and set out for Bothell." Mark couldn't hold it anymore. "By the time we got there, almost everyone in the neighborhood was dead. The Martins, the McClarins, my girlfriend…" Mark tried and failed to pull himself together. Why did the one time he was too late have to be when the people he knew were in trouble?

"The only people left alive when we got there were my folks, and even then, it was only to see chryssalids enter their house."

Mark knew Percy had listened to his briefing when he paled. "Before we could reach my folks, we were pinned down by floaters. I had little experience shooting guns back then, and I missed any shots I made. We barely dented them, and they only were toying with us. All I could do was sit there and watch the chryssalids enter my house."

Mark gave up all attempts at speech. Why did this affect him so much?

He knew why. A deep part of human emotion is love, which can breed both the greatest joys and the worst tragedies in someone's life. Mark had loved his family his friends, and, in a strange way, his schoolyard adversaries. They were all what made up of the ordinary part of his life.

That part was gone. He was never having an ordinary life again.

As Mark took a deep breath, Percy spoke for the first time in forever. "How do you deal with the nightmares?"

Mark was slightly surprised by the question, but it was an easy answer. "Why do you think I'm down here? After we got back and debriefed, I asked Bradford to find someone to teach me. Since then, when I'm not running XCOM or chatting with the men, I'm down here either by myself or with AK."

"AK taught you to shoot?"

Mark nodded. "He is XCOM's best rifleman. He's fine with a sniper, but give him an assault rifle and he is death incarnate. In fact, he actually came to XCOM with four AK-47s in his luggage. It gave security a heart attack and formed his nickname. The Russian's got spunk, I'll give him that." Mark stood up. "How do you cope with your nightmares?"

"Either swordfighting or Annabeth."

Mark smirked. "You two married yet."

Percy threw his arms in the air. "Hey, we have literally been through hell together. I would burn the world for her." He muttered under his breath, which Mark caught, "My fatal flaw."

Mark grinned. "Loyal to a fault, eh? There are worse fatal flaws…" Realisation hit Mark. "Wait, a second, you and Annabeth went through Tartarus, _the PIT?!"_

Percy winced. "How'd you guess?"

"Only place in Greek Underworld that is inherently deadly. It is home field for monsters. It is so dangerous, that no known mortal heroes have ever traveled into it, let alone survived it. You two must make one hell of a team."

As Percy blushed, Mark knew why anyone would follow him into hell. Not only was he a good fighter, he was inhumanly humble and loyal to a fault. He also had a wit sharper than his sword, which is always handy. He admitted his weaknesses and knew when to seek counsel. Percy probably could have outdone the Braveheart version of William Wallace for ability to rouse courage into a last stand.

Percy yawned, and stood up. "Let's try to sleep," he suggested, "we can't be sleepy while hell crashes around our ears, eh?"

Mark grinned. "Yeah let's do that. Maybe you'll tell me about your vision in the morning."

At the look on Percy's face, he got up and brought his sword and the AK – the gun, not the person –into the matrix locker. When he got in there, he saw the file he had received on his desk while he had been asleep.

The memory sparking, Mark quickly grabbed it and ran out into the armory, but Percy was already gone. Mark ran up the stairs, heading towards Percy's room. He needed to hear this _now_. Mark opened the door to Percy's room…

To find Percy and Annabeth hugging each other. They weren't making love, they weren't even kissing. They were merely comforting each other and enjoying the mutual company.

Mark silently closed the door and looked down at the folder. _I'll let them have their rest,_ Mark decided.

 _I'll tell them I found Leo Valdez at breakfast._


	8. Ch 8: I wrote this for the Odyssey quote

**Hello, Internet, and welcome to chapter 8 of Operation: Angry Gods! This chapter, we finally get the ball rolling and set up some character interaction that I have been waiting to write.**

 **Anyone still reading this story might notice the fact I am shying away from fight sequences. There have only been two fight sequences so far, and neither of them were any fun to write for me. I much better enjoy dialogue and environments where I get to bounce different characters off of each other than pelting through nameless mooks. Action will come, however, and soon.**

 **I am getting a tumblr and have a stardestroyer Dot net forum account! Both of these were created for easier access to feedback. Also, I want your criticism, so give it at any of those locations. The username is the same as here, so I will be easy to find.**

 **And with that, Let us begin! I do not own anything or anyone (except for Mark and Bravo squad).**

 **Quote of the Day:**

" **Where the hell have you been?"**

" **Enjoying Death."**

 **Q and James Bond, Skyfall**

(Jason's POV)

"So let me get this straight."

AK, the Russian assault, was leaning forward intently in his chair, staring at Jason as if he wasn't human.

"No internet or cell phones, at all."

Jason shrugged. "For demigods, it's worse than sending up flares while doing the can-can down the street with Green Day blaring out a boom-box. It is the fastest way to get attacked by a monster, although I know of demigods that have used this to their advantage."

"But you miss so much! xkcd! Red Vs Blue! Video games on Steam!"

The demigod cracked up as Hawkeye slapped his fellow assault on the back. "You were unfazed when you discovered that these kids had godly parents and Greek myths are real, but you freak out at the thought of no internet. You, my man, clearly have your priorities in the same place your taste in weaponry went."

"Do not trifle with the Kalishnokov!"

"Come on, it is a reliable weapon, but put it in a battle of attrition with the M-16 and what's going to jam first?"

"The M-16," AK deadpanned.

"Oh, shut up." Piper interjected. Naturally, everyone's mouths clamped shut. "Oops, my bad guys."

Jason, Piper, and the entirety of Delta squad were sitting in the usually unused diplomat's mess hall, which was empty except for them. Apparently, the Commander had pulled some strings to get a dining room for the demigods where they could talk freely. The squad had been given the basics by Percy and Annabeth last night. Jason was filling in any remaining questions over breakfast, as Percy and Annabeth were still asleep. (The fact they had fallen asleep in each other's arms had emitted some oohs from the men in the squad, but Bones had called it "proof that they are a serious couple.")

"How exactly does that work, piper?" Bones asked after she got her voice back.

"Oh," she said bashfully, "it's called charmspeak. I merely suggest something to someone, and they do it. Normally, my will has to be stronger than my targets, although it is easier if someone subconsciously agrees with or wants to do what I suggest."

"Huh," Terminator muttered, then said to Piper, "You might want to talk to our one psy-operative, or maybe Vahlen. It sounds a lot like psychics."

Jason sat back and subconsciously reached for his pocket. _Too bad you're not here…_ He then bolted upright, remembering where his picture was.

"What's wrong, Jason?" Piper asked worriedly.

"I need to see the commander." Jason stated. "Where is his office?"

Soylent shrugged, then replied with his Australian accent. "Bravo section, green three, but it's ten minutes after his boson usually wakes him up. He might still be in the shower."

Jason got up and pecked Piper on the cheek. "I need to talk with the commander. I'll be right back."

He walked through the corridors, easily finding the office. Sure, he wanted the picture back, but he wanted to actually _talk_ with the commander as well. They had only talked in meetings and interrogations, not in a casual setting. Jason knew nothing about the commander aside from what he had said in meetings, and that was still very little. What was his motive for working with XCOM? What did he want from the Olympians? Why was he playing ball by their rules?

Why did any mention of his past sober him up immediately?

Jason stepped forward and, noticing that the boson was missing and the door was unlocked, drew his sword and entered the office.

The office was on the small side and a demigod's worst nightmare – that is to say, their worst nightmare of interior decoration. Every single wall was lined with bookshelves, each filled with hundreds of books. When Jason squinted at the bookcases, trying to read through his dyslexia, he realized that not all of them were in English. At least three languages were present on the shelves, which appeared to contain a mix of history, science, science fiction, and fantasy books. He adjusted his glasses as he made his way towards the desk at the opposite end of the room. Behind that there was only a half bookcase with a mandolin, a model UFO, and a double-barreled shotgun of all things mounted above. The desk itself was cluttered with paperwork and a half-closed laptop.

As Jason neared the desk, a side door he had not noticed earlier opened up… Revealing the barrel of a pistol.

Jason dived for cover, but instead of a hail of bullets, the barrel was replaced by the sheepish looking commander.

"Sorry, Jason," Mark apologized. "I just got up, and when the silent alarm on the office door tripped – well, I forgot that I had transferred my boson yesterday."

Jason stood up, sighing at the whole situation. "Why did you transfer your boson?"

"Poor guy couldn't handle the insanity of being my secretary. Where are my manners? Please, take a seat. Would you like anything to drink? Coffee? Ginger Beer?"

When Jason shook his head no, Mark strode out from behind the door, revealing he was still wearing what he had slept in: a faded star wars shirt and plaid boxers. Jason was mildly amused at the sight of someone in boxers striding to his desk like it was just an ordinary day, but that bemusement was overridden by the shock of the sight of the commander's left leg.

It was gone, replaced by an artificial leg made entirely of metal.

The commander got a tired smirk on his face as Jason's eyes budged, and he said in a thoughtful tone, "Yes, I was wearing the long pants yesterday, wasn't I? I lost that," he commented, rapping the metal with his hand, "during the alien assault on our base. The first attack to delta section was pushed back, but the next two waves entered through the cargo bay next to engineering and, well…"

Mark shrugged, taking a seat at his desk. "The rest of that wonderful day is a blur. I clearly remember losing my leg, but not much else."

Jason's brow furrowed upon hearing this. "So the rumors are true?"

Mark gave a cautious look. "Which ones?" He asked in a worried tone.

Jason smirked. "The one that said you lost your leg when you got into a fistfight with a berserker."

Mark's head slammed into his desk. "Really?!" the commander yelled, his annoyance clear. "A berserker. There is one crystal clear reason that is simply not true. I am here. In front of you. My guts not spread across four continents. I am not Chuck Norris. It was a muton. 500 feet away! I was pushing an engineer out of the way of his gun, and I got hit! It happens!"

"Was the engineer that Rachel we met?" Jason interjected (darn you, adhd).

"Notthepoint." Mark said, practically cutting him off. "I did not punch a berserker to death, or kill 10 aliens with a paperclip, or do anything superhuman the rumors attribute to me!" He sighed, rubbing his forehead. After an awkward pause, Mark spoke, assuming his normal aloof tone. "So, you want that picture now, Jason?"

Jason nodded curtly. He had learned just now that the commander was indeed human, but had a lot of the problems that a demigod leader had. Sometimes, the legend was bigger than the person. When you are that person, it can get quite annoying to live in a glass house.

Jason was startled when a large file was put in front of him, his picture of Leo attached to the front. "You might want to take the rest of the file as well, though." The man in his boxers then sat back, waiting for the demigod's reaction.

At first, Jason was reluctant to open the file. What exactly had Mark found? Jason was wondering if Leo's body had washed up somewhere, or if he had survived somehow, but died anyways. It had been two years. What if Leo wanted to get away and leave the life of a demigod behind? All this was overridden by one clear, concise thought. _My best friend might still be alive, and I want him to be okay._

Jason opened the file.

(Leo's POV)

 **Hong Kong. Nighttime.**

Leo was not dead.

Okay, _technically_ he _had_ died, but his dragon had given him the physician's cure, solving that problem.

After that messy business, Leo had busted Calypso off of Ogygia, although apparently he had been gone for a year at that point. Oops.

Their crash-landing in Moscow, where Ogygia had decided to drop them off (technically, they had appeared over Novgorod, but they crashed into Moscow), had revealed another problem: Calypso suffered from severe culture shock. The severe lack of plant life and the brash nature of modern people had thrown her through a loop.

Leo had come up with a simple solution: take Calypso on Festus the dragon for a tour of the world. I mean, he had been dead for a year, so the campers would not be waiting with open arms for him. Also, he still technically started a war, so the Romans might still want to kill him. This gave him time to adjust to a semi-normal life with a beautiful girlfriend.

Calypso leaned on her shoulder. "Come on, repair boy, tell me why you wanted to come to… how do you say it again?"

Leo grinned at Calypso. "Come on, sunshine," he said, "Lan Kwai Fong is not the hardest name to remember compared to some of those cities in Russia."

Calypso shoved him playfully. "You are insufferable."

"Eh," Leo said, "it's a gift." The young mechanic's eyes then widened when he spotted a food cart loaded with bubble-shaped sweets on a stick hounded by tourists. "Woah, what is that!"

The shopkeeper responded in kind in his native tongue. "Zhe shi tanghulu. Ni xi huang tang ma?"*

Leo was a little confused all he got was that it was called tangy hulu or something like that. A young tourist about Leo's age saw his confused expression and added helpfully, "Tanghulu is candied fruit on a stick. He asked if you liked sweets." The tourist turned back to the cart, payed the merchant, and tweeted or something as he grabbed his sweet

When Leo heard all of this, he turned and puppy-eyed his girlfriend. "Can we _please_ get some? You know I suck at dealing with people selling me things!"

Calypso rolled her eyes, but nodded and walked up to the store clerk. Even though she was mortal now, the Titaness still had her magic, which included an aptitude with languages. After two days at most in a new country, she would have the dominant language down. This came in useful when Leo inevitably set someone on fire.

As Calypso ordered the sweets, Leo leaned back and soaked in the night. His interlude was interrupted, however, by a steady voice.

"' _Hapless man, sorrow no more…'_ "**

Leo tensed. He wasn't sure if it was because the voice was in Ancient Greek, or if it was because he recognized the quote.

"'… _I pray thee in this isle, nor let thy good life waste away…'"_

Calypso was now too looking at the person speaking… the teenager from earlier. He was leaning against the side of a building a few feet away, his tone steady, his eyes closed and arms crossed over the "vote no on daleks" shirt he was wearing. Calypso and Leo had read a copy of the Odyssey together, out of her girlfriend's morbid curiosity. She had laughed at the flowery language and risqué endeavors, claiming her encounters with Odysseus and Hermes were _way_ less flowery in language and romance than the hyperbolized story. She had however, glowered at the way Odysseus had referred to her in later chapters. "He had the nerve to tell white lies like that?" she had grumbled. "Please tell me that this exchange is just Homer being a douche." Leo still hadn't brought up Odysseus's astrolabe to her.

"… For even now will I send thee hence with all my heart."

Leo was now extremely alert as he headed towards the stranger with Calypso, his hands near his tool belt. Something was very wrong here. Random strangers didn't just start quoting classical literature unless they wanted to make a point. And it was obvious where this was going.

Once the three were right next to each other, the strange teen took a bite of his treat then looked straight at Calypso. "Something tells me you never really were that much of a romantic, but I have been proven wrong before."

Leo was confused whether to break out his hammer now or keep listening. The dude had not been hostile to them, so he probably wasn't a monster. However, he didn't carry himself like a god, and Leo could sense two pieces of highly advanced technology on him***.

The stranger gave Leo an X-ray level scan, and then stood up straight. "I am not here to fight, Mr. Valdez. I am just here because I have a favor I am giving someone, and I just happened to be the first one to find you. I wanted your attention without getting everyone else's, and with the people at this tourist trap speaking dozens of Languages… well, no one will notice one more."

Leo was not backing down and neither was Calypso. The teen reached out a hand. " _Mark Johnson,_ " The teen introduced, switching back to Greek. _"A pleasure to finally meet the repair boy and the lonely castaway."_

Leo raised an eyebrow at the choice of word, then realization dawned on him.

" _Di immortales,"_ Leo swore.

"You got it in two, Leo."

Leo turned around, and found Jason, Percy, and a man he didn't know making their way towards Leo.

This conversation was gonna be Zeus-sized awkward.

 _This conversation is Zeus-sized awkward,_ Mark thought.


	9. Ch 9: tea with doves

**Hello, Internet, and welcome to chapter nine of Operation: Angry Gods! I apologize for the long wait, but I was slammed with homework because of three upcoming AP exams in a month's time.**

 **This story now has over 2,000 views, 18 followers, and 7 favorites, as well as 10 reviews, all of them mostly positive, with one big complaint I went back and fixed because it bugged me too. Thanks to each and every one of you, I take the time to respond to most reviews via pms, and will respond to any future Anonymous reviews here. Keep them coming!**

 **I would also like to apologize in advanced. This chapter started as an alley ambush but somehow became a satire/ crossover with a John Woo movie. That probably wasn't what you expected when you started this story, but XCOM is about the unexpected. This insanity will only last this chapter, so expect to be back to my normal levels of insanity next chapter. Enjoy!**

 **Quote of the day:**

 **Missed! How could you miss? He was three feet from you!**

— **Mushu, Mulan; Every player of any XCOM game ever.**

* * *

(Mark's POV)

The dinner was really awkward.

Mark was sitting in between Piper and Bradford, with Leo and Calypso on the soldier's left, and Percy and Annabeth next to them. Percy and Calypso seemed to be trying to put distance between each other, while Annabeth and Leo were trying to get a read on the other's love interest. Jason and Piper were trying to figure out how to diffuse the bomb of emotion in front of them, while Bradford was trying to pretend he wasn't there. And Mark?

He was admiring the puzzle that is teenage emotions and relationships

The tension was palpable around the table, but around their little group, the little tea shop hidden in a corner of Hong Kong was bustling. Customers laughed, tea sloshed in their glasses, and birds flew about in cages hanging from the ceiling. The waiter slowed down near the table and looked at Bradford. "Ni xihuang he shenme?" _What would you like to drink?_

Mark spoke Chinese, but his poor second-in-command knew none. Bradford (he knew his first name now, but it was hard not to associate the man with his surname) was fluent in German thanks to his dad, and knew a little Japanese according to the conversation Mark had undertaken on the flight to Hong Kong with Bradford. He had learned Bradford's full name, now he wanted to know more about the man who owned the name. They were getting along better now that bridge had been crossed.

Mark shrugged off his thoughts and leaned forward towards the confused Bradford and waiting waitress. "Dui bu qi," Mark began, his accent perfect, "Shu shu de zhong Wen bu hao." _I apologize, but my uncle's Chinese isn't good._ Mark turned to the demigods. "What type of tea should we get?" he asked. When he was met with only confused looks, he replied, "Well then, let's get something a little different than you get at home." He turned to the waiter Ni men yao Baihao Yinzhen." _We would like to have white hair silver needle tea._

The waitress's eyes widened, with good reason. That tea was expensive, and the only foreigners who sought out that type of tea were connoisseurs, not lanky teenagers. She looked towards Bradford who nodded. He may be language blind, but he knew what Baihao Yinzhen was. Corporal Zhang had brought some from home when he was picked up by XCOM, and had made some for the ranking officers at a couple of war councils. Good times. It hit them hard when he bit the dust. That ex-criminal was one of the best.

Mark turned back to the drama unfolding in front of him. Or rather, the awkward silence that had fallen over the table. He was ninety-percent sure he knew what was going on here. Between saying "oh gods, oh gods, I _hate_ flying" two-hundred times on the flight, Percy had mentioned being stranded on Ogygia, Calypso's home island. Jason took the tale from there, stating that every hundred years, a hero would wash up on Calypso's island, the kind of hero she couldn't help but fall in love with. The hero would always leave for a lover or a cause, and, because no one could find the island twice, Calypso would always be that hero's biggest what-if. Even Odysseus (something about dwarfs in Bologna?) had been thinking about her even when he was an old man in Greece. And then Leo had ended up on the island, and had fallen madly in love with the first girl whom he really felt for.

From there, the pieces fell in place. Percy and Annabeth were worried about Calypso holding a grudge, due to some experience they had shared (a curse from a bitter lover, maybe, the commander mused, then pushed the speculation aside). The thing was, knowing how determined, loyal, and kind Percy was, he had probably tried to get Calypso freed from her prison at some point, but hadn't followed up on it because the son of Poseidon is also a little too trusting sometimes (the interrogation had proved that, to be honest.) He held no animosity towards the daughter of Atlas, but wasn't sure of the vice versa. Meanwhile, Leo and Calypso were worried about the exact opposite: was there still a flame there? (It was a stupid worry, but hey, love is blind) Meanwhile, Piper and Jason were wondering why the hell their friend had never called or at least sent a _not dead yet, wish you were here_ postcard.

Yes, this was a tangle of emotions, Mark mused. But this was getting nowhere, so he decided to break the tension. "So, Leo and Calypso," the young leader droned, "are you curious about how we found you?"

The couple was startled out of their worried musings, and turned towards each other. "We were wondering about this appearance. So how did you find us?"

Here, Mark made a split-second decision to switch to ancient Greek. It would make things a little more difficult (there isn't an ancient Greek word for "big-ass flying saucer"), but they were getting into sensitive territory, and most citizens of Hong Kong spoke English. " _My people track UFO's and supposed sightings. I just ran your face through our database of unconfirmed or dismissed sightings. Your picture popped up in a Russian Newspaper with the title 'dragon sighted in the sky, shot down over Moscow.' From there, you weren't exactly subtle. Blowing up a terror cell in the Middle East, various serpent and monsters throughout Eurasia… you know how it goes."_

" _You're people?"_ Leo asked. " _Who are you, Scully?"_

Mark laughed as the tea arrived. He thanked the waiter then went back to the conversation. " _No, I fight aliens."_

" _Like the ones that attacked this city and many others?"_ Calypso interjected. " _We saw the battle sites, heard the stories of soldiers holding back the alien threat."_

" _Yes, I am the leader of that organization."_ Mark grinned, then switched back to English. "Now that I think about it, I can see you spouting romantic poetry. You have a way with words."

Calypso blushed, which earned Mark a glare from Leo. He raised his hands in a surrender posture. "She's all yours. Now let's not let this tea get cold." With that, a much more comfortable silence fell over the table. Once again, Mark was the one to break it.

"So, you were gone for a year before you dropped in on the Russians. How old are you, biologically speaking?"

Leo thought for a second, but it was Calypso who answered. "We are both sixteen. I gave up immortality for repair boy, so I kept track."

As the conversation continued, Mark fell under a bit of a shock. _She really does love him,_ Mark thought, looking at the couple in question. _That makes three times in my life I have seen true love. Good god, I've become a romantic._ Mark rolled his eyes…

And stopped when he spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

"Well, shit," Mark muttered, flagging the waitress down.

"What is it?" Bradford asked, breaking off the demigods' conversation.

"Pass the tea around, and take a glance at the table with all the doves."

Mark waited for this to happen, remembering what he saw. Among all the fluttering birds, an older gentleman sat. He wasn't handsome by any definition, but he was hardened by years on the street. He had tea, but he sipped little, keeping his eyes on one table. Mark had met this man twice, and once was during Operation Slingshot for XCOM. The other time was the BRB incident.

He was a cop, which meant he was here on a sting.

The waitress returned. Mark smiled at her, and gave her a small token the cop would recognize: Zhang's lucky coin. " _Could you give this to the man with all the doves?"_ Hesitantly, the waitress nodded, and worked her way over to him as the tea finished its circulation.

Mark was just able to make eye contact without turning his head noticeably. As soon as the cop got the coin, they locked eyes. A silent conversation occurred through merely picking up cups, moving silverware, and eye contact. It went something like this:

Cop: what are you doing here?

Mark: For once, I was minding my own business.

Cop: bullshit.

Mark: I was! Who are you busting?

Cop: three tables over.

Mark covertly glanced at the table in question, and had to stop himself from doing a double take.

"Hey, Percy?" Mark asked, his voice barely audible over the drone. "What has a donkey leg, a goat leg, and fangs?"

"To Hades in a handbasket." Percy cursed.

"Exactly what I was afraid of. They're trading weapons. Worse still, I recognize who is selling."

Bradford caught a glimpse of that table and nodded. "That eye tattoo is kind of a give-away."

"Now you're telling me the illuminati is real?" Annabeth muttered.

"No," Mark corrected, "EXALT, a pro-alien group. As long as no one makes eye contact, we shouldn't ruin the bust."

A dove franticly flapped around its cage, trying to break free. Percy looked at the table with the monsters and terrorists, almost directly to his left and several hundred feet away, when his eyes widened. "Two things," he said quickly. "One, I know one of the emposia."

"Okay." Mark acknowledged, gesturing for the son of Poseidon to continue.

"Two, I made eye contact."

"Fuck."

Quickly, Mark had another silent conversation with the cop.

Mark: I blew your bust.

Cop: *sigh.* Is it always going to be this way with you?

The cop stood up at the same time as the _emposai_ glared at Percy.

"This is going down to a firefight," Bradford assessed. "Will we win?"

Mark grinned at his number one, and gestured towards the cop. "You know what they say about Tequila Yuen."

The _Emposia_ stood up, bumping into a waitress.

"Give him one gun and he's superman."

The falling waitress and monster knocked over a bird cage, spilling out two doves and a cache of Laser weapons onto the floor.

"Give him two and he's a god"

Tequila yelled "Police!" and chaos erupted.

* * *

(Percy's POV)

Firefights sucked. Especially when you had no ranged weapons.

Percy dived for cover behind a column as civilians scattered in all directions. The terrorists and monsters all drew an array of pistols, submachineguns, and laser weapons, but four went down before Percy could blink. The commander's and Bradford's plasma pistols were still smoking as they aimed again.

A second burst of plasma missed the several dozen enemies still scattered around the tea shop as he and Bradford used a kicked-over table as cover right next to him. The cop – Tequila, Mark had said – shot like a demon, long bursts of bullets flying out of his akimbo guns as he dived over a table. Four monsters were caught in his line of fire and disintegrated. _Wait a second…_

Before Percy could react, Annabeth peeked her head up, two tables back, and had to drop to the floor when her table was disintegrated by lasers and bullets. Bradford and the commander took out an exalt terrorist together in a one-two blast, while Tequila continued his acrobatic gunplay.

Percy tried to charge the monsters, but he was forced to dive for cover when a hail of bullets greeted him. The son of Poseidon gritted his teeth. He _hated_ feeling helpless, but he couldn't do anything without getting shot. Calypso, Annabeth, and Jason were equally helpless as they all were pinned behind cover. Piper at least confused the enemies with her charmspeak, while Leo looked to be cooking up a surprise with an Archimedes' sphere.

"Good news," Mark stated amiably, taking a couple of potshots at an _Empousa_. "Apparently, Plasma does kill monsters." It was a little unnerving how he took down another Terrorist as he kept talking while still keeping a tone as if they were still drinking tea. "I prefer the m1911 all the same, but I digress."

Mark then entered what must be his commander mode. "Leo," Mark began, somehow aloof and commanding at the same time, "save that grenade, we may need it later. Percy, be one with the plumbing, cause as much chaos with the water in this room as possible. Piper, use that charmspeak to sow dissent." Mark stopped talking while he switched cover and exchanged more fire. "Have any of you used a gun?"

It was at this point that most of the demigods were mentally slapping themselves. They never had any motivation or opportunity to pick up marksman skills. Frank might have been able to, but he would have relied more on shapeshifting than ranged combat.

Surprisingly, Piper raised her hand. Mark flipped on the pistol's safety, tossed it to her, and grabbed a briefcase he had brought from the skyranger. Piper seemed to find the safety, and held the large gun aloft, not expertly nor calmly, but as if she had done it before. A compact but deadly-looking plasma rifle emerged from the briefcase, to the smirk of the commander's approval. "Excellent," Mark grinned, his face showing the expression of a chess player who had found the checkmate.

"Make hell."

From there, the fight was even more chaos. Cages broke, bullets flew, and demented doves darted around the tea shop. Mark and Bradford moved swiftly as one, passing from cover to cover and shooting at anyone who dared to show their face while they moved. Sometimes side-by-side, sometimes back-to-back, and sometimes following one or the other, they were a whirlwind of plasma and sweat.

However, they weren't killing most of the bad guys. That honor went to Tequila, who dove like a bird between tables, weaving around pillars and pigeons, shooting a near-constant burst at monsters and EXALT alike. For some odd reason, the cop hadn't run out of ammo yet, nor did his guns seem to overheat. Odd.

Percy was finally doing something, but he though his help was still pretty useless. He disoriented enemies with jets of water, dismantling or disarming their weapons or forcing them out of cover and into Tequila or Piper's line of sight. She was not a good shot by any definition, but had still put several monsters out of commission. She seemed a little reluctant to shoot any of the mortals, but didn't hesitate on the monsters.

Leo, meanwhile, was holding what looked like a tablet in his hand. He was using it to scan the walls and ceiling, and seemed to be checking for more incoming enemies. He occasionally lobbed a grenade that exploded in smoke, a flash, or popcorn.

After several minutes of this mania, only five enemy combatants remained, all of whom were being pushed back towards the kitchen. The fight was winding down

Suddenly, an _Empousa_ stood up and shouted "ENOUGH!"

Kellie. The donkey-legged vampire had tried to kill him twice, and looked to be back for a third.

She walked forward menacingly. "Your days were numbered, son of Poseidon," she growled, "Since when you first set—"

BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

The monologue was interrupted by the noise of three plasma weapons and two automatic pistols simultaneously opening fire and hitting Kelli all over her torso, instantly vaporizing the monster. Two massive, obsidian-colored Sig Sauer automatic pistols hit the ground

"Give someone fangs and black pistols and suddenly they think this is _Hellsing_ ," Mark said, annoyance leaking into his amiable tone.

The remaining terrorists, for all the monsters were dust, retreated into the kitchen, the doors of which were riddled with holes, but still obscured the cooking area from the main dining room. The demigods, soldiers, and police officer all made for the door until Leo yelled "They have hostages."

Percy felt a jolt go up his spine. "Holy Hera."

Sure enough, when Percy caught a glimpse of Leo's tablet, he saw the thermal outlines of several armed individuals pointing their guns at multiple prone chefs. Innocents were now in the equation. This could get ugly.

Mark cocked his head, staring at the image. "Were they really stupid enough to stand right in front of the dishwashing station?"

Sure enough, the son of Poseidon sensed a high-pressured source of water right behind the terrorists, as well as a basin full of soapy water.

"Percy," Annabeth said, her turn to make a plan finally coming, "get ready to restrain them if possible. Get a flashbang ready to toss on my signal. After that flashbang goes in, Mark and Tequila will go in for the hostages."

Mark grinned. "Couldn't have said it better if it was my plan."

Mark brought the rifle to his soldier. Leo readied his grenade. Everyone tensed.

"Now!" Annabeth yelled.

The sinks exploded. A grenade went off. Tequila and Mark burst into the kitchen.

It lasted about two seconds, but it seemed an eternity. The cop and the commander fired several rapid bursts into the terrorists trying – and failing, thanks to the water – to shoot them. The men dropped to the ground, and someone wimpered.

It was all over.

Tequila brought up the front, the hostages running out with him. The police hadn't arrived yet, but Tequila led the six men out to the front of the tea shop.

"Well," Bradford started, "That –"

"Woah!" Leo yelled, aiming his apparently infrared camera on the tablet at the kitchen. "The Brigadier just decked a hostage!"

"What?" Percy started.

"He was armed." Bradford pointed at a blue outline on the tablet screen, which the device helpfully identified as a 9mm pistol. "Looks like someone with the dealers wanted to escape with the civvies."

Percy was unsure of what to do. "Should we go in there?"

"The commander's got this," Bradford stated calmly.

"Are we sure?" Calypso asked. "I mean, he was awfully calm for the amount of chaos on play here."

"That's one of his gifts," Bradford stated. "He could be on a log floating in a hurricane and still ask you 'how's your sister?'" The second in command shrugged. "He is good at hiding how scared he really is. One of the reasons why morale is higher than it should be in our circumstances is that he knows how to keep everyone calm and just on this side of chaos."

Annabeth frowned thoughtfully. "Did he ever act or—"

The kitchen chose that moment to explode.

After his ears stopped ringing, Percy saw that the entire front wall of the kitchen was gone. The birds scattered around the restaurant had gone berserk, flying every which way to try and get away from the exploding kitchen.

As the smoke cleared, a figure limped out, cradling a plasma rifle.

It was Mark and he looked angry. His face and arms had many cuts, but he looked relatively fine, except for his left leg which, to Percy's alarm, was shooting out sparks.

"The bastard was rigged with c-4." Mark said, sounding tense for the first time since the firefight broke out. "I got as far from him as possible, but he got my bionic leg good."

 _Ah,_ Percy thought, _that's why it's sparking_. It made sense, Percy supposed, as someone had mentioned something about the commander's leg and a berserker in XCOM HQ.

The commander winced as his left leg folded out from under him, but was caught by Bradford. Sirens sounded in the distance.

"Sorry to shoot and run," The young soldier said to Tequila, "but we have to get out of here before the authorities ask too many questions. I'll send any info we find out about the gun runners to you. I have one simple question before we leave."

The cop inclined his head.

Mark grinned. "Is your mother Nemesis?"

Tequila sighed. "What gave me away?"

"The way you had celestial bronze bullets and never run out of ammo until you have retribution on those who wrong you."

The cop shook his head and turned around. Mark walked towards the exit, Bradford helping him because of his faulty fake foot.

They turned towards Leo and Calypso. "You taking your dragon?"

Leo grinned. "Take me to your leader alien man."

Calypso rolled her eyes. "He _is_ the leader, repair boy."

"I know that. It just had to be said."

They all disappeared into the night.

As they left the Tea shop and made for their airplane, Percy went over to Mark.

"What did you find out?" Percy asked.

Mark smiled grimly. "I found out that someone from your world has allied with the aliens. I intend to find out who."


	10. Ch 10: D20's, Rush, and the odds

The commander's return had been... eventful, Shen reflected.

Showing up with a dragon in tow tended to do that.

When Shen had been startled out of his break by the alarm blaring, he had inquired to the nature of the emergancy. Because it was XCOM, he had been expecting just about everything. Everything, that is, except for two teens on the back of a bronze dragon trailing the Skyranger.

The eccentric owner of said dragon, a bright, exuberant lad named Leo Valdez, had landed after the commander vouched for him in front of a group of wary security personell, shouting "People of Earth, I come in peace!" No-one had been amused.

After that lovely display, the commander had explained that Leo was another demigod they had run into in Hong Kong. That part hadn't surprised Shen in the slightest.

It took a while, but he was getting used to the whole "the Greek Gods are real" revelation. He had seen enough proof between the demigods and the appearance of Athena herself. It made him wonder what other dieties were out there...

Shen shrugged slowly, then turned back to the firestorm he was working on. They were finishing the cockpit's seals and, god willing, would be done by the end of the week. While most of the base was relaxing and watching the spectacle that is Mark spinning an adventure around the table,he and around ten engineers were putting in overtime to finish their interceptor. Many people joked about the firestorm being "his baby," but he really was proud and determined to get it right when it came to getting the firestorm ready. Many of his staff felt the same way, leading to an electric atmosphere and hard work. Someone had rigged up a radio to the work area's speakers, blasting a song Shen wasn't familiar with. It was, he grugingly admitted, highly apropriate.

"Lining up at seven eight

And I go to work at night,

I got no time for living here

I'm working all the time"

"Rachel," Shen asked politely, "could you check the power feed on the engines?"

"Sure thing, doc." Rachel gave a salute with her wrench, then dove under the firestorm's engines.

Sometimes, the chief engineer wished everyone at xcom had rachel's enthusiasm when it came to their job. The war would be a lot shorter.

The engineer looked up again when he heard someone enter the room. It was Leo, the lad with a dragon, and his eyes widened when he saw the interceptor. "Holy Hera," he muttered under his breath.

"Why hello, Leo," When greeted, steping down from the aircraft. "How could I help you, young man?"

"Actually," Leo began, rubbing the back of his neck, "I was getting a little restless in the rec room, social events aren't my thing, and I heard a couple engineers talking about this sick new project you were working on." Leo shuffled around, his hands tapping nervously on his thighs. "Could I take a peek under the hood?"

Shen thought for a moment, then nodded. He knew a fellow engineer when he saw one, and getting a... mythical view on their engineering would be fascinating.

"The engine access panel is here," shen said, opening a large panel aft of the cockpit. "We used an alien power source recovered from UFOs, and the engine-"

"Produces lift via a graviton field, right?"

Shen nodded, a small smile reaching the corners of his mouth. "How did you guess?"

Leo smirked. "It's a gift. How did you adapt alien computers to work with conventional software?"

"We didn't," Rachel interjected, frowning in thought at the odd boy in front of her. "We basically rewrote the base programs from scratch, switching to english in the process."

The impish boy nodded. "Makes sense, you didn't want to chance any nasties the aliens left in the software."

Rachel grinned. "You seem to know your stuff."

"Well, I did build a flying warship, so it comes with the territory."

"You built a... you knwo what, I'm not asking." Rachel's brow creased. "You want to help us, kid, or are you going to gawk at the firestorm all day.

Leo's smirk became ever more mischevious. "Where do you want me?"

"Right at that engine, help me run some diagnostics."

"Yes, ma'am!"

The song went into the base line.

"And that's why they call me,

They call me the working man!"

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Calypso was intruiged by the "gaming session" she was witnessing. It reminded her of the storytellers she had seen in human villages in many respects, and yet, at the same time, was a different beast entirely in that it was interactive.

"The Dead King rises to his full seven feet, his eyes glowing yellow in rage." Mark, the "DM," raised his hands above his head, bumping his mandolin aside, and assumed a raspy, menacing, voice. "'So you made it past my levies. Bah, those small-minded fools have no Idea what the big picture is.'"

Mark is sitting at the head of a table, three seats on either side of it. A screen partially conceals him from the players, who are the others sitting at the table. From what she had been told and seen over the course of the past hour and a half, Calypso believed that the "players" each assumed the role of a character, like an actor, and then acted out or told the dm the actions and roles that character was doing at any given moment. The characters included an elvish Cleric with healing spells, played by Bradford, a sneaky halfling rogue, played by a man named AK, two human fighters, played by two "techies" from the control center, and a half-elf ranger, played by XCOM's most vetran soldier, Osvaldo Soto. The team's wild mage, Played by Rachel, had died rather spetacularly early on when a magical surge had propelled her 200 feet into the air, only to crash into the ground, exploding into a swarm of butterflies. She had decided to help the old engineer with his project, since she couldn't play and had work that needed to get done. Around the table and throughout the rec room, other members of xcom watched and listened to Mark and his players talk, fight, and think their way through the elvish kingdom of Evergreen.

Bradford spoke in-character as the dwarf cleric "you shall not take over this land while we still live, lich!"

Mark strummed a dramatic cord on his Mandolin, his face breaking into a grin. "The lich chuckles. 'Heh, that's what you think my goal is? Perhaps you aren't as smart as I first thought. If you were able to see my final plan, you would wish that I had smited you right here. But alas, you have made yourselves my problem."

The tension in the following silence is palapable. Mark looks around the room. "Alas, we end it here tonight." A massive sigh of dissapointment flows thruout the room as everyone packs up. "Remember," Mark shouts, picking up his dice, "we still have a job to do. Stop the aliens, ect. See you tomorrow."

After almost everyone clears out, Mark makes his way over to the demigods, as...

Wait a minute, where's Leo?

"Leo snuck down to engineering. Poor guy has trouble with crowds, probably," Mark states, catching the panic on Calypso's face. "What did you guys think?"

"It was interesting," Calypso remarks, "like someone took a play, and then turned it into an interactive game."

"It was amusing to watch," Jason comments, "but why was everyone so into it?"

"Probably because it's the only two hours where the problems we are facing aren't real," Mark states. "For a short time every week, we aren't responding to a threat that could kill us instantly, we are kicking in evil's door before it rears it's ugly head. Also, it is the only time where Bradford is not stressing out over me or the base. It's nice to see him not worried about this emergency or that problem."

There was a moment of silence, then Calypso spoke. "What are your odds. Against the aliens, that is."

Mark sighed. "I don't know and I don't care. That goes against rule number one in this crazy-ass world.

"Which is?"

Mark smirked, a twinkle in his eyes.

"Fuck the odds."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Commander Johnson sat behind his desk, fingers steepled. He was waiting for his three top advisors to arrive. It was 2 am, and the Commander needed this done before dawn.

Bradford, Shen, and Vahlen did so in short order, and closed the door behind them. Mark did a quick sweep with a bug scanner, the fith time in one hour. He then turned towards his most trusted advisors.

"Gentlemen," he began, "we have a problem. I don't trust the Greeks. Or rather," he amended at the start of their objections, "I don't trust their gods. They are too volitile, too petty, and too divided to be a stable ally. If things head south between us and them, we need backup. And by backup, I mean a second pantheon."

Everyone looked thoughtful for a second. Shen spoke up. "The Greeks can't be the only pantheon. The demigods said that they were an imbodiment of western civilization, every action in their world has an impact on western civilization, and vice versa."

"Indeed." Mark mildew, a smirk formed on his face. "The Greeks weren't the only civilization that impacts our buildings, our morals, our..." suddenly, a light went on in his head. "...Money,"

Mark almost wispered the last part, elicting a nod from Vahlen.

"Indeed, the Norse shaped the face of the mideval world, there's even Viking runes etched into the Hagia Sophia. They are probably still around."

"Let us not forget western Culture is not the only one with strong mythologies," Shen interjected. "Shinto, Buddhism, Vedic... all of these are worth looking into."

It was odd how casually they had adjusted to the idea of myths being real. It probably had something to do with one literally walking in the front door of their base.

"Those seem like good ideas, what do you think..." bradford was halted by the sight of the commander crawling under his desk. The Central officer sighed. "What are you doing, Mark?"

"Looking for an Americain dollar. If we are looking for gods - aha!"

The commander slammed old George onto the table, then flipped the dollar bill over. He looked for a second, a grin spreading across his face, when he suddenly darted for his bookshelf, grabbing a large volume, he found the page he was looking for quickly.

"So if they set up shop in America... AHA!" Mark flipped the book shut and put the volume on his shelf. "I know who to find them."

"Who is them, Mark?" Bradford asked, weary of the name game they were playing. He seemed to be the only one who was lost. Why all the excitement over a dollar bill?

"The guys that built _that_." Mark tossed the bill at Bradford, who looked at the back of the bill. He smirked after a second, finally getting it.

"They were influential, weren't they?"

Mark got his game face on, his hands rubbing together as a plan of first contact formed.

"To find them, let's start with major cities in the U.S. that have rivers that divide at least part of it from east to west. Houston, Memphis, New York, run the gambit. They might be in other places, but this is a good place to start. I want every type of satilite photo - thermo, uv, even sisemic if possible - of the east side of each river. We will go over them by hand, and look for anything out of the ordinary. I know it's a long shot, but hey.

"Fuck the odds, we find Egyptians, right?"


End file.
